By Your Side
by Runnerload
Summary: That one Day changes Mc Gee forever as the woman he loves gets injured pretty bad during Parsa's drone attack on the Gala that he and Delilah attend together. Will she survive and what will the future hold for them?
1. Chapter 1

By Your Side

_AN: Because I think that Delilah and Mc Gee have such a great chemistry together, I finally decided to write a story about this newest NCIS couple. If you like the story please review and as always: Please don't hesitate to write some constructive criticism. _

_This story directly after the explosion in the last episode, it's my version of what happened after the drone attack._

Chapter 1

Slowly but surely Mc Gee finally regained composure again, but thanks to all the fog from the enormous explosion he didn't have a very large field of view. Carefully he stepped over some large pieces of debris and screamed: "Delilah! Can you hear me?" He waited a while for a response but unfortunately there wasn't one and that made him think: _*Come on, please let her be okay because I really don't want to lose her.* _

He felt a slight pain coming up at the back of his head, figuring that he must have landed very awkward as the big shockwave of the explosion had hit him. With all the debris between him and the ball room and the injury at the back of his head, it would certainly take him quite a while to get to finally get to his girlfriend. Meanwhile Tony had almost arrived at the scene; of course he had immediately rushed to his car after he had heard the explosion before the phone conversation with Mc Gee was abruptly ended. The first thing he did was sending the ambulances and police to the scene and all he could think during the drive to the Congress Center was: _*No matter what it costs Parsa is going to pay big time for this!* _Dinozzo could feel the anger pend up inside of him, because this case had now gone from just a threat to National Security to Parsa's personal vendetta against the NCIS team. As quick as possible Tony tried to get through a still heavy evening traffic, fiercely grapping the steering wheel of his car, really wishing that he could get his hands on the person who did this himself. But he finally realized that he had to keep a clear head on this one, even how hard that maybe because when you let personal feelings cloud your judgment it always ended in a bad way one way or the other.

It proved to be very hard for Tim to stay positive right, there was always that one maybe little but persistent voice that kept telling him: _You lost her, there's absolutely no way that she could have survived this.* _ After a while some of the fog had cleared, but he had to stop for a moment because of the fact that the pain at the back of his head really gave him one giant headache. The stair rail was completely gone so in the best way possible he slowly sits down on a big piece of debris, noticing now that his cell phone was in the pocket of his jeans anymore and figured that he must have lost it during the chaos of the shockwave.

Even if he made himself think that Delilah was still alive, Mc Gee was of course aware that she must have been injured pretty badly like all the other people that were practically at the center of the explosion: The big ball room. As he just sat there, hating the fact that he couldn't be a hundred percent sure to get to her in time he thought back to uncomfortable conversation just one day away from this horrible attack.

_Flashback_

_Certainly he didn't want to go to the Gala, but also Tim had a bad feeling deep down as he surprisingly crossed paths with his girlfriend on the way back to bullpen. The two just stared at each other for a while and right now she really didn't know what to think: Should she continue to be mad at Tim because he refused to go to the gala with her without any proper explanation or should she just pretend to forget about the whole thing? All this time she had to ask herself the same question: Why is he stone walling me like that all over sudden?_

_If there was one thing she really couldn't stand: Her partner in a relationship keeping secrets from her and right now she knew that Tim was clearly keeping something from her, but unfortunately for her he was really doing a good job keeping a secret from her. *I know that his job at NCIS is important and pretty much time consuming but in my opinion going to the Gala with me on this evening really isn't too much to ask!* Even if she wanted to scream at him right now, she had to fight very hard with herself to keep her emotions in check as he finally asked: "So…are you here to see Director Vance again?" _

"_No…I'm actually here to see you this time because I brought you something." She then handed him the black tux, which was wrapped in protective foil, even if she knew that his mind was already made up and there wasn't anything she could say to change his decision. He looked a little confused at her, so he asked: "What is it?"_

"_It's a Tux…because I know that you don't have one." She answered trying hard to sound not too disappointed, because deep down she really regretted it to spend the time on getting the black tux tailored for her boyfriend. At first she had really thought that this would make really a good surprise for him but now Tim had let her down when she had least expected it. _

_As he finally looked it, he said how nice that was of her and she could really sense that he was now struggling to find words to say. Tim really just didn't want to have this talk right now, because he felt worst as she said that she had bought him the tux and now she was rightfully so very disappointed of him. _

"_But I can't return the tux through….because I already got it tailored." She continued after a short pause, really just wanted to get all of this just out, because she wasn't that kind of a person who kept her frustration boiled up inside of her. _

"_Delilah….I'm sorry." Was all that Mc Gee could reply to that and right now he just wanted to hide in the next big hole. _

_He then asked her how she got his sizes for the tux and she replied in a very neutral tone, that it was a really easy thing to do to figure out his measurements because of the job as a Cryptologist at the Pentagon. _

"_I know you can't come Tim…because Parsa is still out there, is a big threat to a National Security." Her anger towards Tim was now getting the best of her again, as she rolled her eyes as she said that. Because she didn't have anything to say, Delilah turned around and went for the lift before she heard Tim calling after her one last time. Thinking about just ignoring it for one moment, she finally decided to turn around one more time. _

"_Look Delilah…I'm really sorry." He finally said with some kind of a look that said:*please don't look at me that way anymore* but deep down she just couldn't believe him, because she was just too mad at him right now and so she replied: "I get it! This is important but you didn't want to go to the gala with me in the first place…and that is what don't understand."_

_End Flashback_

For a few minutes a just buried his head in his hands, wishing so much to be able to just hold her in his arms right now. Just a few more steps then he would finally be in the Ball Room and hopefully he did find any survivors down there.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Tim finally reached the bottom of the steps, just a few steps from the ball room door he took a little break again and from the distance he could see the pieces from the huge glass doors spread on the floor. His eyes rested on the pieces of glass for quite a while and as hard as he tried to ban this particular thought out of his mind, he kept thinking: _*Was she being hit by the pieces of glass, that could become deadly like a bullet fired from a gun when it came in contact with the human skull?* _

He shook his head in denial thinking to himself: _*I need to stop thinking that way, because I just know that she still alive and waits for me to rescue her!* _It definitely was quite a challenge to get past all the debris, but being driven by a huge push of adrenaline he motivated himself to not give up hope just yet. He had to watch every of his footsteps because of the large amount of pieces of broken glass that lay on the floor and he couldn't afford right now to have either one of his feet be pierced by broken glass. Meanwhile Tony finally arrived at the Congress Center, being totally concerned about the well-being of his colleague even if he maybe had given Tim a hard time since he had become a NCIS Agent. He quickly ran up the steps to the entrance of the building, of course looking for any sign that lead to the current whereabouts of Mc Gee. All that Debris in the way didn't make it very easy to search the front of the building, but he was definitely determined to not leave the premises before he knew that Tim was okay because after all they were than just people who solved cases together: The Gibbs Team had really become some kind of a family over the years.

It took quite a while but Tim finally reached the ball room and of course was really stunned by the sheer size of the whole room and just took some time to digest that and also tried to plan his next steps. As he did that, he slowly took one step over a little piece of debris and because of the size of the room he know sadly know one thing for sure: To do a search in this room on his own would be one heck of a task to master but because he didn't know how bad Delilah was injured he didn't want to wait for help to arrive, even if it maybe meant that he had to put his own life in danger.

Sadly for him his cell phone had been probably destroyed during the explosion, so he couldn't call anyone of his team to let them know that he was doing okay.

But given the special connection that Gibbs team had established over the years, Tim knew for sure that someone from them would be coming to search for him and Delilah with some medics in tow. He then screamed into the room: "Can anybody here me? No matter where you are, please give me some sign to help me find you. "He waited for some minutes for an answer, slowly making his way through the other side of the room as he finally heard some heavy breathing just a few feet away from his current position and of course he asked himself in his thoughts: _*Is that Delilah?* _Trying not to get his hopes up too much, he quickened his pace a little bit but saw definitely a hand of man being buried under a large piece of debris.

"Please….help…me." The man could finally get out in between coughs and Tim could hear that he was barely able to breath. Deep down he knew that it probably was suicide trying to lift that large piece of debris of the man but acting purely on instinct he tried it anyway. He tried so hard to channel all the strength that he had right now into lifting that piece of debris, but after numerous tries he had realize: This one wasn't going to budge even one tiny bit.

"Help is on the way, so please stay with me and we all will be getting out of here in one piece." Mc Gee said trying his best to calm down the man and then added: "Tell me something about you Mister….?" Mc Gee could hear some heavy breathing again, knowing that it definitely must cost a lot of power to talk right now but the man finally answered: "I'm…..Roger…..Stanton….NSA….Analyst, got two kids….and a wonderful wife."

Knowing that Mister Stanton had a wife and two kids waiting for him at home made Tim so sad right now, because how bad it would be for the kids to know that their beloved father was never coming home again. But instead he said: "Think about your kids and your wife, I just know that you will reunite with them very soon." Of course Tim didn't know if he could believe that himself, but he had always been the kind of optimistic person even if life hadn't been very good to him in the past. Of course he had to ask himself right now: Would he and his girlfriend be ripped apart by death or was there a chance, for having a future with her?

In matters of love he surely didn't have any luck, it all had started so promising but at the end he always had the short end of the stick so to speak but maybe now was finally the time that destiny might be in his favor for the very first time. After a short time of silence, Tim finally spoke again: "I'm NCIS Special Agent Tim Mc Gee and I'm here with my girlfriend Delilah Fielding."

"Nice….to meet you Special Agent….Mc Gee; have you found your….girlfriend….yet?" Roger asked and this particular question made Tim almost tear up in front of a total stranger but he didn't want to let lose his emotions in front of a stranger, even if the NSA Analyst couldn't see how much he was struggling right now to keep his emotions in check. It took some minutes but finally he replied: "No, I haven't found her yet honestly I don't even know if she has survived the drone attack." Finally he could sirens from the distance getting closer to the Congress Center, while Tony had finally found Mc Gee's smashed cell phone right in between some big pieces of debris and thought: _*Tim where the hell are you?* _

The little smile on his face forming, chased that dark thoughts away for now but as he didn't hear anything from Roger for quite a while he got a little worried and asked: "Roger are you still there? Please stay with me okay?" Some minutes passed without any signs of life and as Tim had already thought that Roger had lost the battle against death, he heard the heavy breathing and coughing of the NSA Analyst again and he weakly replied: "I'm still….here Special….Agent…Mc Gee and…I'm sure you will find….your girlfriend." Even if Roger was probably on the verge of death, Tim was thankful to have someone by his side to cheer him up a little bit but even if he wanted to believe what Roger said he didn't seem totally convinced: "I really hope you're right."

_AN: Thanks to- crawcolady for adding this story to her/his story alert list and writing a review, Thanks to- Kian Mc Gee for adding this story to her/his story alert list. Please read and review_


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Meanwhile the medics had made their way to the ball room, it had been a very heated discussion between Tony and the Chief of the firemen on the scene but Captain Jenkins had finally allowed him to accompany him and the rest of the rescue team to the explosion site. Still very much worried about Tim's safety Tony screamed into the direction of the only few feet away ball room: "Tim where are you? Can you hear me? I'm here with some doctors and firemen to get you out of here."

He waited a while for a response, of course being afraid that his colleague also got badly injured because of the enormous shockwave of the drone attack but he had to keep telling himself: _*Tim is still alive, he probably wasn't in the center of the explosion when the C4 went off.* _Tony was really relieved as he finally heard a response from the distance: "I'm here Tony, I've found the first survivor of the attack but he needs medical attention immediately!" As quick as they were able, the rescue team continued their way to the debris field which consisted of broken glass, pieces of the wooden stair rail and large pieces of the walls of the building and Tony had to admit that all of this felt like he had just stepped right in the middle of a war-zone. He surely hoped that Delilah had survived the blast, because Tony knew deep down that it would probably devastate Tim if she would be dead by the end of this.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he almost tripped over a piece of debris, but he didn't want Jenkins, who was right next to him any opportunity to think: _*I knew that it was a big mistake letting myself being persuaded to play the baby sitter for a Federal Agent.* Dinozzo_ quickly regained his composure before he would fall to the ground and thought: _*I really have to focus more on the task at hand damn it!* _ As he continued to follow Captain Jenkins and the rest of the rescue team to the completely destroyed ball room, he also hoped that Gibbs and Hollis would be able to take that bastard Parsa out once and for all and everybody knew that he surely wouldn't go down with a fight. Being hunted by a highly dangerous terrorist reminded him a little bit of Ari Haswari, maybe there was only one thing that distinguished those two men: Parsa took the personal vendetta against the team to a whole new level but they all were determined to don't let him ever win.

"Just hang on a little bit more Roger, because the help for you is almost here okay?" Tim said, maybe trying to delay the inevitable in vain but he didn't want to give up on him because then he would also lose hope getting to Delilah before it was too late. Roger Stanton's body was surely very weak right now; he could sense how fast the last energy was practically drained from his body by that almighty Power the Death himself. But even that one part in his body that wanted to fight for his life got weaker by the minute he collected all the power he got left to reply: "I….will…..try…my best Agent Mc Gee….but…no…guarantees through." Fighting the urge to just give into the great amount of pain, took so much out of him, thinking about his wonderful kids and wife made it possible to keep those negative thoughts at bay at least for now.

As there was silence again between them for some minutes, Mc Gee couldn't help but think back to the final moments before the C4 explosives went off and that particular feeling from that moment flooded back into his thoughts right now: Feeling so helpless, as he wasn't able to do anything to get his girlfriend to safety in time and now not being able to know for sure that she was still alive.

The rescue finally arrived by his side, Tim immediately made some space for the doctors and firemen who got right on the task in getting Roger out from under the large pile of debris. As he watched the doctors and firemen going to work, he was a little startled as he sensed a hand on his shoulder and all this stress had maybe made him a little bit jumpy.

As he finally turned around Tony could clearly see, that this whole thing had already taking its toll on Mc Gee and he wished that he could say something that would make him feel a little bit better right now. On his face were a few cuts and besides the physical pain, Tim must have probably blocked all the time he knew deep down that he was very worried about the well-being of Delilah.

To him those two really were perfect for each other and he didn't really understand why Tim hadn't wanted to go to the gala that honored his girlfriend. Maybe he was afraid that he ended up with a broken heart again or that Delilah had been from the beginning and still is totally out of his league.

He then focused on his colleague again, who now had a very heated discussion with Captain Jenkins who had just assigned some of his men to search the room for any more survivors: "The decision is final Agent Mc Gee, I have the clear order from the chief of the Fire Department in DC to get the survivors immediately to safety and I don't want to be held accountable afterwards if anything happens to you in here!"

Mc Gee now let the anger get the best of him, because he didn't want to understand why Captain Jenkins denied him to personally help with the search for his girlfriend: "With all due respect to your orders Captain, but I won't leave without her!" Tony now laid a hand on one of the shoulders of his colleague again, quickly searching his mind for finding the right words to say, that would be able to cool down this heated argument between the two men. "Tim please let yourself be checked out by the doctors outside and let those guys do their job and she definitely wouldn't want to lose you as much as you don't want to lose her."

Mc Gee let those words from Tony sink in for some time and had to admit, that he was probably right: He wasn't thinking clearly right now, putting his life on the line like that was stupid and there certainly wasn't any use for anybody if he ended up in a hospital bed too. "Ok…you're probably right Tony and thanks for getting my head straight in this one."

_AN: Thanks to- Alex Curtis for adding this story to his story alert list, Thanks to- Mikael Larson for adding this story to his story alert list. Please read and review_


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Outside of the Congress Center, while a doctor was busy with cleaning up the cuts on Tim's forehead Tony stood by his colleague's side the entire time and really hated to see him like this: A very sad look now evident on his face and it probably must be a great emotional torture for him, to just sit out here and not being able to do anything to help. Finally the doctor was done with taking care of the little wounds from the explosion and as soon as he got away from the ambulance, he just couldn't stop looking at the entrance of the building and it really killed him inside to have to wait for the rescue team out here and not personally making sure that she was doing alright.

_*How bad had she been injured in the explosion? Was she even still breathing or would they only retrieve her lifeless body from under a huge piece of debris, that her body had been mercilessly been squashed by?* _ He tried to think about something else instead for now, so he asked Tony: "Have you already found that bastard Parsa?" Tim didn't bother trying keeping out the anger out of his voice, because Parsa may be the one that took his girlfriend away from him if the worst case scenario became a reality in the end. Tony could sense the anger rising up again in Mc Gee's voice and he couldn't blame him for that and because he knew how much Tim needed his moral support in this difficult time the most he replied: "Not yet but we will put that bastard to justice Tim, that one thing I promise you now." _*No ONE messes with my family! I hope that Delilah survives this day, because Tim deserves to be happy, have a real relationship in his life with that woman that loves him genuinely.* _

Tim then turned his attention back to Congress Center and is the minutes slowly passed by, he didn't really know how much longer he could take all that waiting and keeping the tears at bay, because there was just one tiny part in his mind that wanted to let those tears just flow freely and not pretend anymore that he was able to shield his emotions like Gibbs was able to do. In the end Tim was no field agent, he was doing his work behind the Computer most of the time, while Tony came from the Baltimore Police Department to NCIS and Gibbs had been part of the Marine Corps as a sniper. Especially Gibbs was that kind of person, that wasn't easy to understand for anyone from the outside: A man with probably a lot of secrets.

It was so hard to cope with all of this right now and it surely took all the strength he got left, to not just collapse and let the negative thoughts win over the optimism. He was thankful for the moral support from Tony right now, even if he couldn't find the right words to express his gratitude towards him. All that childish behavior from Dinozzo was forgotten right now and this was really one of the rare moments that proved to Tim once again that they all were some kind of Family and Tony may be the brother he never had.

There was silence between for quite a while, before Tim saw some doctors carrying the first survivors out of the building and of course he now got his hopes up again that maybe one of them was Delilah. Tony of course also watched that scene unfold in front of them, mentally hoping the best for the well-being of Delilah because he would definitely make sure to kill Parsa himself if she died today because of him. He clenched his fists pretty tight, hoping that the rest of the team had successfully located Parsa and definitely nobody would hold a grudge against them if they shot him point blank on site.

Too much innocent people had last their lives already on that day, where the Secretary of the Navy Clayton Jarvis had died during an attack on American Soil and after this another brutal attack in their own country all of them were definitely more determined than ever to put this war to an end once and for all. _*Parsa has terrorized this country for long enough, too much innocent lives were taken and enough is enough!* _Tony thought and felt some anger rising up again but somehow he had to keep a clear head in this one, one way or another.

Tony quickly followed Mc Gee to the little provisional sickbay just a few feet away from the Congress Center and kept frantically looking for his girlfriend as more and more injured people were carried out of the building. Of course Tony let his eyes also dart through the slowly growing rows of stretchers but not having any luck in finding Mc Gee's girlfriend just yet. You could already hear a lot of commotion around most of the stretchers, some of them being in a critical condition and another part of the people on the stretchers was already packed into body bags. Tim got frustrated as he had searched for Delilah in vain and it really felt like an eternity for him, even if he had probably totally had lost track of time already.

Some negative feelings tried once again to win him over, as he saw all that body bags and he couldn't help but think: _*Will I able to accept her death, if she is maybe in one of this?* _Honestly he didn't know and definitely didn't want to give up hope just yet, even if the situation seemed so totally hopeless right now.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Tony's screaming: "Tim over here, I've finally found her!" As quick as possible Tim ran over where his colleague stood with two doctors by Delilah's stretcher and wondered how bad her medical condition was right now.

_*Please survive this day, because I don't think that I am able at all to live without you Delilah.* _Mc Gee thought as he finally slowed down his pace, but still had a very concerned look on his face as he asked one of the doctors that was treating her: "I'm Special Agent Tim Mc Gee, she's my girlfriend what's her medical condition right now Doctor?"

"I'm Doctor Parker and I'm afraid that Miss Fielding's condition is still critical but I'm pretty confident that we will able to stabilize her." Doctor Parker could of course see the very concerned look on the young man's and she hoped that she eased some of his concerns at least for now. Without saying any further word, Mc Gee let the doctors get back to work on his girlfriend, of course some sweat was forming one time on his forehead as her BP was dropping to critical level and he could hear Doctor Parker giving out orders to her two colleagues to get that BP back to a healthy level. It took some minutes but that crisis was finally adverted and with Delilah now being ready to transport, Doctor Parker finally said: "We stabilized her condition for now, but we certainly have to run more test s and definitely get her to the ER as quick as possible."

"What are you still so much concerned about Doctor Parker?" Tim asked with a little confused looked on his face and he definitely that she definitely didn't tell him all yet. Doctor Parker knew that this one particular question would come eventually and the following surely wasn't easy to say for her at all: "I'm afraid to say…..that your girlfriend has been hit by a lot of shrapnel during the explosion but some pieces are sadly threatening important organs of her body and if we don't get them out in time she will probably die because of heart failure."

Mc Gee now was pretty shocked to hear that, simply didn't know what to say for a couple of minutes till Tony finally said: "Come one Tim, I will give you a ride to the Hospital." The ambulance had already left with his girlfriend for the next hospital, Doctor Carter telling Tony where they would take Tim's girlfriend. Tim just nodded because he still was somehow still in a shock, feeling like being in a nightmare he couldn't end by waking up.

_AN: Thanks to- Toronto girl 12 for reviewing this story and adding it to her story alert list, Thanks to- Mrs Bruce Banner for adding this story to her story alert list and her favorite stories list, Thanks to- Kate W 1985 for adding this story to her story alert list, Thanks to- EMT 1215 for adding this story to her/his story alert list, Thanks to- Chococino 72 for adding this story to her/his story alert list, Thanks to- Orton Lover 518 for adding this story to her/his story alert list, Thanks to- emareellelle for adding this story to her/his story alert list, Thanks to- leedley 007 for adding this story to her/his story alert list and her favorite stories list, Thanks to- countrynciscatlover for adding this story to her/his favorite stories list and her/his story alert list. Please read and review_


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The whole drive the two didn't say one word, Tony because of the fact that he didn't really know the right thing to say after the bad news about Delilah's medical condition and Mc Gee still was right in the middle of trying to cope what he had heard just a few minutes ago. Tim never ever had believed that something like God really existed but now that had clearly changed: Some higher power clearly didn't want him to live a happy life.

But that also posed another question: Didn't everybody deserved to be able to life a happy live? Mc Gee clearly couldn't think of anything bad he had done in the past, to deserve all this unfair suffering in his live and deep down he knew that this definitely wasn't the usual trials and tribulations that everybody had to face in their live. He shortly sighed, asking himself over and over again: _*what did I do to deserve this?* _ He looked out of the window, passed by a lot of cars but thankfully the traffic was getting more relaxed by the minute so that they were definitely not delayed by any stop and go traffic. They were directly behind the Police escort of the Ambulance, Tim of course hoping that his girlfriend arrived at the hospital without any more medical emergencies so to speak.

But unfortunately there wasn't anyone who could guarantee, that she would get through his without any permanent damage and after having the displeasure to experience this enormous shockwave first hand he even would have a hard time to believe it if any doctor was trying to make him believe that she would be a hundred percent after this.

Then something dawned on him right in the middle of the drive to the hospital: Who would notify Delilah's parents? He definitely knew for sure, that she never had given him the number of her parents just in case for that kind of emergency. One other thing was for sure, her phone had definitely not survived the explosion but she had given him a second key to her apartment and that meant that he could get her some fresh clothes and find out the telephone number of their parents.

Deep down he wished, that both of them had just stayed at home tonight because that way he wouldn't have to go through all this emotional pain and those were really the moments were he hated this job so much.

No matter how hard the emotional toll maybe would be, there was absolutely no use in speculating what could have been if things had went a little bit different because he needed to focus on here and now. _*I have to stay strong for her and she certainly wouldn't want that the negative thoughts win me over.* _

He knew one thing for sure now: When all of this was finally over, never again he wanted her to be that much disappointed in him as today and secondly he didn't want her second guessing her decision starting a serious relationship with him. Tim had to put his worries finally to rest, at this difficult time right now he needed to realize that she genuinely loved him with all her heart.

Delilah was definitely the best thing that could happen to him, who had thought all these years that there wasn't one single woman that wanted to date a computer nerd. But now he finally came to the realization that: Delilah Fielding really was the right one, he had been searching so long for and to himself he made a silent promise to totally appreciate that.

They finally arrived at the hospital; the doctors quickly got the stretcher inside where probably an ER Team was already waiting for their arrival. Fortunately for them it didn't take very long to find a free parking space and it was kind of hard to follow Mc Gee as he went for the hospital entrance in a very quick pace.

Meanwhile Delilah's unconscious body finally arrived in the ER, Doctor Parker breaking the short silence as she said: "Let's not lose any precious time, Anderson keep an eye on the BP level and notify me immediately if it falls into the life threatening regions." An assistant in the ER got the Oxygen mask situated on her mouth and paid close attention to the display, because the young woman could die right here on the table if she didn't get enough of it during the risky operation.

Tim and Tony were finally sitting in the waiting room, after a nurse had notified them that Delilah had just been brought into the ER for a longer operation. Mc Gee surely didn't like waiting, but unfortunately there wasn't something else he could do right now than hoping that nothing would go wrong during the operation in the ER. Tony really felt so helpless right now, as he looked at his colleague shortly wishing that he could guarantee him right now that he and Delilah would be able to spend the rest of their lives with each other but he just couldn't and everything else you could say in this kind of situation would sound too cliché in his opinion.

The long silence was interrupted, as Tony's cell phone vibrated in the pocket of his jeans and as he got it out he saw that a message from Ellie Bishop had arrived: _*Gibbs wants you back at the office, Parsa has escaped.* _ It wasn't an easy thing to do for him right now, but because of the fact that a very dangerous terrorist was still at large the rest of the team needed his help in finding him even if that meant leaving his colleague here alone at the hospital.

Dinozzo shortly sighed and said: "Tim…I need to go back to the office, unfortunately Parsa was able to escape." Mc Gee sighed also in return, now feeling a little bit depressed again he looked to the ground shortly before he finally replied: "Bye Tony and I really hope that we find out soon where Parsa is hiding."

"We will Tim and don't lose hope because Delilah is a tough woman, she will definitely get through this okay?" Tony said as he stood up from the chair right next to his colleague, again letting one hand rest on one of Mc Gee's shoulders for some moral support. Tim then took a short moment to just let this sink in and then answered: "I will do that Tony and thanks for staying by my side."

Before Dinozzo finally turned around to head to the next lift he said: "You're welcome Tim and I will always be by your side no matter what happens." He felt so lonely and small in the waiting room as he just stood by the glass wall and stared into the empty corridor behind it, as he watched his colleague leave this floor.

_AN: Thanks to- Someone for reviewing this story, Thanks to- pugsrule for adding this story to her/his story alert list, Thanks to- casket tiva 21 for adding this story to her story alert list. Please read and review_


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

As longer as he sat there in the waiting room, the more tired Tim was by the minute and as hard as he fought against it, he drifted right into the direction of falling asleep right here in this chair. Meanwhile the ER Team was in the final stages of the Operation: "Okay everything looks good so far, let's wrap this up everybody. " Doctor Jean Parker said and with still paying very close attention to the oxygen and BP level, she got to work on closing the cuts again as the slow rhythm of the EEG could be heard in the background. But like in most cases her current patient wasn't out of the danger zone just yet: The next forty-eight hours at least would definitely be crucial and the few tests that they would do, would definitely help them to determine if any permanent damage to her body was done.

Doctor Parker had seen that genuine concern in that young man's eyes and that of course made her wonder: _*How would I feel if I were at his place?* _It would definitely devastate her too, if her boyfriend Dwayne would be lying in a hospital fighting for his life and there was that uncertainty in the air considering the question if he would survive this day or not. Right at this very moment her feelings sent her on an emotional rollercoaster: There was one part in her mind, that really wanted to tell Agent Mc Gee that his girlfriend would survive this day but on the other hand: He probably wanted to hear the whole truth about his girlfriend's condition, no matter how painful it might be but how could avoid to make him an emotional wreck?

A few minutes later they had finally wrapped up the Operation, Doctor Parker surely being very proud of her team as she said: "That was a very good job everybody, Miller and Peters get Miss Fielding to a free room and I will update Agent Mc Gee personally." And with those final words she left the ER heading for the waiting area, where Agent Mc Gee was probably still anxiously waiting for an update of the medical condition of his girlfriend and in her head she already thought about the best way to tell him that it wasn't totally clear just yet Miss Fielding was out of danger.

Meanwhile Tony arrived back at NCIS, clearly very concerned about what things had gone bad already today: Not only had Parsa again murdered a lot of people today, he now had apparently gone off the radar. Shortly he had a look around the bullpen, Gibbs and Bishop were sitting at their desks and Tony could imagine very well that their team-leader wasn't too pleased with the fact that Parsa had practically slipped through his hands. Before he finally sits down behind his desk he said into Gibbs direction: "Mc Gee is doing okay he is at the hospital right now by Delilah's side." Even if Bishop didn't know Delilah that much personally, Tony could see some concern on her face as he asked: "How is she doing right now?"

"The Doctors are doing everything they can to save her." Tony replied short and sweet to Ellie Bishop's question and as hard as it was, he now needed to focus back on his job because they really need to find Parsa before anything else bad happened.

Of course Gibbs thoughts had been with Mc Gee the whole time; even if he didn't drive to explosion site right after the Drone Attack he surely had been worried a lot about the young men's safety. From Day One the entire team he worked with had instantly become something like a family after he had lost the important part of his original one: His daughter Kelly and his first wife Shannon. What made him concerned him maybe just a little bit more right now: How could they stop Parsa?

Unfortunately for them, they were completely in the dark about what his exact plans for the future were: Was he already done here in the US or did he still have a score to settle with some in this country? He clearly was a clever man; Gibbs sadly had to give him that but in the end Parsa would get the punishment he deserved.

Back at the hospital Mc Gee had finally lost the battle against sleep, now lying on two steal chairs but even in his sleep all he could think about was Delilah. _*Would she ever be the same again after today?* _He still didn't know if Delilah's body had suffered any permanent damage because of the C4 explosion but any how he was determined to stay by her side no matter what. Slowly Tim woke up out of his deep sleep as he heard some steps approaching the waiting area, he sat up straight again didn't want to make a bad expression in front of whoever the visitor was and tried his best to put sleep back to bay for now as he shortly rubbed his eyes.

Doctor Jean Parker finally entered the waiting room and she could see very well, that Agent Mc Gee was really tired despite his best efforts to hide that from everybody. She got her hands out of the pockets of her white coat and said: "The good news is Agent Mc Gee, Miss Fielding's medical condition is stable right now the operation went very well and she is transferred to a free room in the hospital right now."

Mc Gee of course was very happy to hear that, but the concerned look on Doctor Parker's face clearly meant that there was definitely a catch in this whole thing and he was pretty that he wouldn't be pleased with that. Jean Parker took one deep breath in and out before she announced the obligatory but in this good news: "I'm afraid that she isn't completely out of danger just yet, the next forty eight will be crucial for the recovery of her. I and my team will busy with running tests for the next two days and I hope that you understand that it is too early to say if there has been any permanent damage to her body."

Tim let this all sink for some minutes until he finally replied: "When can I visit her?"

"Not before tomorrow Agent Mc Gee and so I suggest that you go home now and get some rest. Miss Fielding also needs some fresh clothes, so I would appreciate it very much that you get her some clothes from home."

Of course he really didn't want to admit it at first, but Doctor Parker was clearly right: He was very tired and in the end he did nobody any good if he denied his body the sleep he desperately needed so much right now. He finally then left the floor heading for the next lift, of course being aware of the fact that he had to search for a payphone outside of the hospital to call himself a cab back home.

_AN: Please read and review_


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Mc Gee finally had left the hospital, one last time he turned around to face the building and couldn't help but think about all the dead and wounded people that he had seen today. He was pretty sure that these pictures would certainly continue to haunt him for a very long time, because being right in the middle of terror attack wasn't exactly something that anybody could forget that easily no matter how hard you maybe tried to ban the images from your mind.

He shortly looked into the dark sky, staring at some tiny stars way above his head as he started walking again and his mind he kept asking himself over and over again: _*If her body has suffered permanent damage in the end, will I be able to cope with that?* _ The Truth was right now: He wasn't sure about that, also was unsure if he really was able to let go of all the fear, that he had inside of him considering the relationship with Delilah because he wasn't sure if this was finally going to be something that would last. So much times he did have bad luck in the matters of love, even asking himself one time: _*Am I maybe a magnet for woman that just search for naïve men like me, that they can easily manipulate and then throw away like trash after they're done?* _ As Tim had reached a payphone just one block away from the Jefferson Hospital, he thought about calling a good friend from NCIS to pick him: Like Erin Taylor from Human Resources for example but on the other hand: Could he really now take all the questions that she might have considering Delilah, when the mere thought of her badly wounded body made him feel like someone tried to rip apart his heart? Instead of dialing a number of one of his colleagues, he dialed the phone number of a taxi company near the Jefferson Hospital because he clearly wanted his team to be totally focused on the hunt for that bastard Parsa.

He wanted to deal with all that messy emotions on his own right now; when he was ready he was opening up to anyone from his team but at first he needed some time to let all of this sink in and of course come to terms with what the future might hold for him and Delilah. Tim finally hung up the phone, sat down on a bench closing his eyes for a minute, took one deep breath trying his best to relax a little bit before the cab would finally take him home and he would at least try to get some very much needed sleep.

Meanwhile back at the Office, Gibbs and the rest of the team were still struggling to find any clues on Parsa's whereabouts and hit a solid brick wall with the driver of the car that he took not willing to cooperate in any way with them. Gibbs finally took some files from his desk, put them right on the ground together with Bishop's laptop, who still looked totally shocked about what had transpired today and finally said: "We have to start at the beginning, come on Bishop this is what you do!" But Ellie Bishop couldn't react right now, because she was definitely not a machine that could switch off her emotions if they were interfering with doing her job.

Gibbs kept looking at her, growing a little bit impatient as he repeated he said: "Bishop!" Finally Ellie was moving to the position, where Gibbs wanted her to be right now with some of the relevant files for this case placed around her laptop she tried to concentrate on the task at hand: Find Parsa.

"Find that bastard." Gibbs said a lot of determination in his voice at this very moment because one thing was crystal clear for him: He definitely wasn't going to give Parsa any more opportunity to hurt the people that he cared so much about. Tony and Gibbs were closely standing by, as Bishop was trying to find a way into the head of the Number One Enemy of America and this made her feel this big kind of pressure again, which clearly came from the big shoes that she tried to fill here at NCIS.

Gibbs had figured by now, that Mc Gee didn't want to talk right now because he hadn't answered any of his recent calls and of course he had to ask himself: Was Tim still able to do this job after he had been that big personally involved in a terror attack?

Of course to Gibbs Mc Gee always had been a very important part of the team, but right now he wasn't able to say just yet if he was fit for duty again after today. Because the way Gibbs saw it, Mc Gee really loved Delilah and he surely was very happy for him after all that bad things that had happened to him Tim clearly deserved to be happy. He didn't want to imagine what would happen to his mental well-being, if that woman he clearly loved so much was taken away from him: Unfortunately Destiny could be that cruel to a person and he had experienced first-hand how his life had been sent into a constant down right spiral after the death of his first wife Shannon and his only child his daughter Kelly.

Mc Gee kept looking out of the window of the cab the entire drive, trying to busy his mind with something other than the horrible pictures of the so many dead and injured people and that nagging feeling that it was somehow his fault that Parsa had succeed in attack the gala that had been visited by a lot of people of the Intelligence Community. But he failed miserably in putting all this pictures to bay, being a kind of afraid to tell Delilah's parents about what had happened today, because he felt that he had absolutely failed in protecting the woman he loved and so he kept asking himself the whole time: _*Do I really deserve her love?*_

_AN: Thanks to- federal agent 82 for adding this story to her/his story alert list and adding it to her/his favorite stories, Thanks to- noddy987654321 for adding this story to her/his favorite stories and adding it to her/his story alert list, Thanks to-Josette 1807 for adding this story to her/his story alert list. Please read and review_


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The next day Mc Gee woke up really early, his night had been really short because of the fact that he was haunted by relieving the explosion at the Congress Center over and over again in his dreams he had been laying wide awake in bed just staring at the ceiling the most time of the night. He yawned as he finally sat up in his bed and as he looked at the landline phone on his nightstand, he now really needed to make that one call that he was so much afraid of and so he grabbed the little note with the Phone Number of the Fielding's.

He finally dialed the number, as he heard dialing tone he just thought to himself: _*Please just let this be over very quick.* _Brad and Sandra were right now sitting at the breakfast table and surely wondered who was calling them at this early hour of the day as Brad heard the telephone ring first through the half open kitchen door. "I will get it Sandra." Brad sat, taking one last bite from his sandwich before he finally headed for the living room to hear who was on the other end of the line. Brad Fielding finally picked up the phone and was a little surprised to hear Mc Gee's voice through the receiver and finally asked: "Good morning Tim, is everything alright? " He asked being a little bit unsure of this whole situation, really hoping that his daughter's boyfriend didn't have any bad news to considering their lovely daughter Delilah.

Mc Gee really did struggle with finding the right words to say, but then he finally replied: "Good Morning Mister Fielding, I'm afraid I've tell you some bad news considering your daughter."

If he wasn't even a little bit worried before Brad now was really concerned for his Daughter and without much hesitation he said: "What's wrong with Delilah Tim?" Brad now could hear Tim taking one deep breath in and one out, what meant that this kind of situation was clearly not easy for him: "She has been injured during a terror attack on the Gala, which visited yesterday, and right now her medical condition is stable but she's not out of the danger zone yet." Delilah's father really didn't know what to say for quite a while, now his wife also had joined him in the kitchen because she wanted to know why the phone call took so long. Brad let the phone receiver sink down just a little bit away from his ear and Sandra really got worried as she saw that shocked expression on her husband's face, of course now having to ask herself: _*What is wrong with Brad?* _ She softly caressed his right cheek, as she gently asked him: "What is bothering you so much honey?"

It took quite a while but then Brad Fielding had finally regained his composure as he spoke again:

"We will be in Washington as soon as possible and I know how you feel Tim but we will get through this together okay?"

"Yes Mister Fielding and thanks for your support." Tim replied and now was happy that he had finally had got this thing finally off his chest after some more of a little awkward silence between Brad Fielding and Tim, finding it very hard to speak right now Delilah's father finally ended the call with the words: "I just only want to say, that me and Sandra really couldn't have asked for a better son-in Law Tim because of the fact how highly our daughter has always spoken of you , must mean that you two are definitely meant to be together."

Mc Gee really didn't know how to respond to that little speech from his girlfriend's father, because he truly had never ever heard those words out of the mouth of one of his girlfriends from college and that list was very short. It took some minutes before he finally said: "Thank You very much for saying that kind words; I really appreciate it."

Tim then finally hung up the phone, sighed shortly and then he finally went into the kitchen to make some breakfast of course Delilah being that one thing that was on his mind the whole time.

He yawned one more time as he switched on the coffee machine and got his favorite cup out of one of the cupboards in the kitchen as he mused about what the day might have in store for him. That bastard Parsa was probably still out there, probably hiding somewhere from them like the big coward he was.

_*I will personally make sure, that he won't get another opportunity to hurt any of the people that I care about!* _ Of course he would visit Delilah in the hospital later, he anxiously had waited so long for the moment when he could look into her wonderful eyes again. Seeing the picture of her unconscious body lying in the hospital bed, made him a little bit sad again and that one thought was creeping up again on him: _*I failed to protect the woman I love.* _

Finally he concentrated on eating his breakfast, because he was practically starving right now but he probably would be able to enjoy this breakfast a lot more if Delilah would be here to enjoy it with him. Since their relationship had become serious, they had eaten breakfast together a lot of times and as he finally started eating his bread with marmalade he started to imagine: Delilah sitting right on the other side of the table, not any make up on her face and drinking her tea. That memories made him smile for now, made him forget about this whole bad medical situation she was in right now being totally determined to don't let the negative thoughts get him too much depressed.

He had met her the first time in a café, on an evening when he had spontaneously decided to meet up with Mark Pearson who was an old friend from his time at MIT. The way they met perfectly fitted that cliché: The white knight saving the damsel in the distress, Mc Gee hurrying to rescue as he saw a woman fall on steps dressed in high heels suddenly fall because of the fact that the steps had become very slippery because of the rain and one of the heels of her shoe had suddenly collapsed. Even if his friend was probably already waiting at the restaurant for him, with the umbrella in hand he quickly ran over to her and asked the woman if she needed any help.

_AN: Thanks to- aphass for adding this story to her/his story alert list. Please read and review_


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

_Flashback_

_Tim rushed quickly as quickly as he could through the rain by the side of the woman. Not like the most of the people, he really wasn't the type to just ignore things like that because he really had a little helper syndrome one thing that had always made him a very sympathetic guy in the women's world but nothing more._

_Mc Gee probably wasn't the guy, who any woman would want a relationship and computer nerds unfortunately weren't that popular or maybe he had just lost faith a long time ago that armor's arrow would someday finally strike him. As he had finally arrived at the bottom of the three steps Tim immediately asked: "Are you okay, I saw you falling down the stairs?" The Hair of the woman got soaked with water pretty quick, mentally she really was really furious about the fact having that much bad luck on this day: First she had practically stormed out her ex-boyfriends apartment as she caught him right in the middle of making out with another girl and to make matters worse, one of the heels of her shoes had broken right in the middle of the rain and had her falling down three steps. _

_It took a while to regain her composure but then she finally replied: "I guess that I'm doing okay, considering all the bad things that have happened to me but thanks for your concern anyway." Slowly but surely she tried to stand up again on her own but quickly had to realize how big of mistake that was, because she felt huge pain coming from her ankle but she didn't want to embarrass herself in front of a total stranger so she gritted her teeth and continued to carefully try getting up from the ground. Mc Gee continued to watch that for a moment, before he finally extended a hand to help her up from the ground. She was hesitant at first to accept that stranger's hand, but the ongoing pain in her ankle made her realize that it was better to take it and she would probably catch a cold if she would stay out here any longer. _

"_I'm surely no doctor but to me it looks like you have maybe sprained your ankle." Tim finally ending the silence between them before it got awkward and as he now finally took some time to look at the woman, he had to admit to himself that she looked a little bit attractive and one thing was for sure: If Tony would be at his place right now he would definitely go into "full flirt mode" very quickly. But Tim clearly wasn't the womanizer Tony was even one bit, flirting with woman had never been one of his virtues he was a total rookie in this field. "Can you accompany me to my car because I think that I really could use some help with walking and I unfortunately don't have an umbrella on me? " _

"_No problem Miss…?"_

"_I'm Delilah Fielding and what's your name?"_

"_Nice to meet you Miss Fielding I'm Tim Mc Gee and it will be my pleasure to accompany you to your car." Tim answered with a little smile on his face, she then finally held onto him gently and as he extended the umbrella over her head the two started walking to Delilah's car that was parked just one block away._

_End Flashback_

He finally realized that the rest of his coffee had become cold, as he had been too busy with letting his thoughts wander to the first time where he met her. Mc Gee emptied the cup of coffee very quick after he had finished eating the bread on the plate because he didn't want to waste any more precious time with thinking about the past. No matter how painful it maybe was to think about, all what in the end mattered was the present: Being by Delilah's side as she finally wakes up and giving her all the support she needed.

Tim didn't know when her parents would arrive in Washington, but he was sure that it would mean a lot to his girlfriend that he and her parents would be sitting by her bedside all of them of course totally concerned for her well-being.

Meanwhile back NCIS Headquarters, Gibbs and the rest of the team are still not getting any closer to finding any leads on Parsa's whereabouts. Jethro steps off the elevator, after he had another fruitless interrogation with the man that they had recently captured and as Tony sees his boss coming he immediately says: "Hate to have no good news for you Gibbs, but I've got no hits on the bolo of the car that was reported stolen."

You could easily see that Gibbs was clearly frustrated about this, but he didn't want to let his frustration cloud his judgment no matter how long it may take to get an Idea to where this bastard has disappeared to. Ellie Bishop was still sitting on the floor in front of her desk, trying very hard to find anything that would get them closer to finding Parsa but unfortunately had come up empty so far. Gibbs just stands still for a minute in front of his desk, finally remembering that he had been able to hit the driver of the stolen SUV with a bullet in his arm and so he finally says: "Grab your gear!"

Gibbs decides to drive himself; because of the fact that he knows the best where he needs to head to right now and nobody of the team dares to question the instinct of their boss. With the bullet they will be to get the DNA of the driver and getting at least that would make the situation a little less hopeless then it was right now.

Back at the hospital Mc Gee finally arrives at the floor where Delilah's room is, again seeing a lot of wounded people sitting in the long hallway probably waiting for a doctor to finally treat their wounds. After he had passed some rooms, where some injured people from yesterday evening lay in hospital beds he finally reached Delilah's door. It took some courage at first to go into the room but then after he had taken one deep breath he finally opened the door and just looking at her for one short moment made him think: _*She looks so peaceful right now, even after all the pain she had to go through.* _He took her hand into his and only as loud as a whisper he said: "I'm so glad that you're okay, because I really thought I lost you for a short time." It took quite a while, but then Tim felt her reacting to his presence by gently squeezing his hands and so he continued to say: "Delilah I love you and please forgive me for acting that stupid because of the whole gala-thing."

She finally opened her eyes, looked with a weak smile on her face and said: "I love you too Tim and of course I forgive you because I just can't be mad at you for too long."

_AN: Thanks to- Arizona Kate for adding this story to her story alert list, Thanks to- the elegant faerie for reviewing this story, Thanks to- moonlight 1234 for adding this story to her/his favorite stories list. _

_Please read and review_


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Tim was so happy at this very moment that he just wanted to hold her in his arms for a couple of minutes, but Delilah did have a long road of recovery ahead of her so he needed to hold back his excitement for a little while. Of course she didn't want to ruin the nice atmosphere between them but she just had that enormous urge to ask him about the details on the explosion since she had finally woken up out of the coma: "That bastard Parsa did this right, how many people died?"

Tim really didn't know at first, if he should answer that question because he didn't want to upset her but as he saw that kind of pleading look in her eyes he just couldn't deny her an answer.

"Medical Personnel on the scene has confirmed six dead and twenty two people injured." He gently kissed her on the forehead, kept holding on to her hand the entire time hoping that this bad news didn't have any bad influence on her condition because that was clearly the last thing that he wanted to happen. It took her some time to digest all of this, of course she was upset that Parsa had once again succeeded in delivering a large blow to them in this war: _*We can't let him win!* _The heart rate on the EEG now started fluctuate a little bit, Tim now getting a little scared as he saw that the first number now was almost at a dangerous level. He squeezed her hand a little more trying his best to soothe her with his words: "Please calm down, because the doctor says that you are still in a vulnerable state and I promise that we will get Parsa one way or another." She finally took two deep breaths, finally starting to relax under the soft touch of him and said: "

"I guess you're right about that Tim, do my parents know yet what happened?" She replied and deep down she wished, that she was out there helping to find Parsa but maybe she really needed to be more concerned about her own physical well-being. Mc Gee was definitely happy that she had decided to not let that attack upset her so much right now, because of her vulnerable medical state she was in and finally answered: "Yes they are probably still on their way here, I didn't have the opportunity to ask them when they would arrive in DC."

Meanwhile the rest of Gibbs team had arrived at the alley, where the mysterious driver had waited for Benham Parsa and Gibbs had been able to hit the right shoulder of the guy behind the wheel with one bullet. Jethro tried to set his thoughts back on this one situation, figuring out at first where the car had stood and then triangulating the point where his bullet had landed after firing it at the driver. As he found the exact position where he stood last night, he had Bishop stand there handing her the laser pointer and as she switched it on they finally got what they searched for: the bullet. _*The bullet went straight through his right shoulder and because of that Abby will find some DNA on it for sure.* _

As Tony had bagged this very important evidence, he wondered how Delilah was doing because he hadn't heard from Mc Gee since he had to rush back to the office. After he had secured the evidence bag with the bullet in it he got out his cell phone and typed a short message: _*How is Delilah doing right now?* _ Then he finally got back into the NCIS van as the last of the team shortly after Bishop. He surely hoped that she had survived the explosion without any permanent damage to her body and deep down he knew one thing for sure: Tim loved her with all his heart and no matter what would happen, he would stay by her side to support her through this probably long road of recovery.

Back at the hospital Doctor Parker finally arrived to do her usual round: "Miss Fielding it's nice to see you being awake again, how do you feel?"

"I feel like being hit by a train, my legs hurt a little when I bend both of them is that normal?"

"Your body has lost a lot of blood, but I assure you that this is not permanent your legs will definitely feel better when you can finally begin to start rehab. " Doctor Parker said and was really glad that the operation had gone that well, because it surely had been one with a lot of risk involved.

She made some notes on the notepad she carried with her like on every round through all her current patients before she said: "But before you can start with rehab, we have to make sure that there's no relapse in your medical condition because I clearly don't want to experience any unpleasant surprises and because of that we have to run a couple of tests in the next forty eight ours to keep an very close eye on any changes in your condition."

Delilah took a moment to digest all of this before she replied: "Thanks for the update Doctor." Shortly after Doctor Parker had left the room, a nurse finally brought Delilah her breakfast with something to drink of course. Mc Gee didn't want that Delilah struggled too much with smearing the bread, he did that for her and that made her smile for a moment as she thought: _*I certainly had my doubts about this relationship after this whole gala thing but now I truly now, that is going to be something that lasts.* He_ poured some water into the plastic glass on the table, putting the straw into the it to be safe and asked: "Are you thirsty right now?"

She just nodded, carefully handed her the cup and watched very closely she slowly but surely began to sip on it maybe fearing that it might fall out of her hands because of her weakened state.

_AN: Thanks to- gracfully for reviewing this story, adding it to her/his favorite stories list, Thanks to- Slywia Uni for adding this story to her story alert list. Please read and review_


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

It took quite a while but finally she was done with her breakfast and even she thankful to have some help from her boyfriend, she would clearly be happy when she would finally be able again to eat breakfast on her own again. When she didn't realize that some marmalade was left hanging on the edge of her mouth Mc Gee said: "You've got some marmalade on the right end of your mouth; let me get rid of that for you."

Tim then grabbed the napkin lying right next to the breakfast tray, softly wiping away this little marmalade stain on her mouth and for that one moment they just stared each other deep in their eyes. She was really touched by all the kindness from him so far, staying by her side the whole time even if he also had been personally involved in that incident at the gala. Of course he had only suffered some minor injuries one the inside but she could sense that he was suffering from a lot of emotional pain, even if tried his best to hide that from her because he felt like he needed to stay strong for her sake. She didn't want to think about the gala anymore, that one that should have been something like a great honor for her but now she couldn't help but asking herself the question: _*How many of my colleagues from the Intelligence Community died yesterday? * _

She hadn't seen the Congress Center after the big C4 explosion but deep down she had that nagging feeling: Those six dead people definitely wasn't the final number of people dead, because Parsa had struck the black tie gala with the intend to once again punish his number one enemy in a big way, after the US Military had successfully destroyed one of Parsa's compounds in Pakistan and he probably wouldn't tolerate any failures.

Sitting at his desk in the bullpen Gibbs is still waiting for Abby to finally call and of course tell him some good news: She has found the DNA of the driver on the bullet that had been fired from his weapon. While he is anxiously waiting for the Goth to call, he wonders if it's a good or bad sign that Mc Gee still hasn't called any one of the team. Of course he hoped it was a good sign, Mc Gee probably needed some time alone with his girlfriend after all the drama both of them had to go through and he would certainly grant him all the time he needed because he wanted Tim to be at his best again when he finally returned to work.

If he was honest to himself he even envied this young love between the two a little bit, it reminded him of the time when he had fallen in love as a teenager with his first wife Shannon and it surely made him wish to be able to get this time back somehow. Jethro was interrupted in his thoughts as the phone on his desk rang and because Abby was probably on the other end of the line he answered it without much more hesitation: "Gibbs here, do you have some good news for me Abs?"

"Yes I have definitely found something that will hopefully get us a little bit closer to finding Parsa."

"I'll be at your lab right away Abs." Gibbs answered before he ended the call, then he got into the elevator and as the doors finally closed he thought: _*your games will be over very soon Parsa!*_

Back at the hospital Delilah was finally done with breakfast, it surely wasn't anything special but was enough to satisfy her hunger for the next couple of hours at least. Of course she was also happy to see her parents today, she usually didn't have the opportunity to see them that often because of her very time consuming job at the Department of Defense as a cryptologist.

Her mom and dad surely must have been worried a lot when Tim had told them about what had happened, while she probably would never ever have thought to be the target of a highly dangerous terrorist. _*That had surely wasn't part of the job description when I started working at the DOD.*_

Working as a cryptologist for the Department of Defense was surely a job at a desk in a little office most of the time trying to crack some codes of the bad guys and of course the more risky job would definitely be out in the field as an agent. When a terrorist was on a personal vendetta against you and the people who you cared about the most, you had to watch your back at all times because you have a target on your back once you get involved with people like Benham Parsa.

"Have I ever said how much I hate hospital food?" Delilah finally said finally breaking the silence between them because she wanted to get her mind off this whole attack on the black tie gala. It surely was totally horrible, how bad a great gala in her honor was ended suddenly and without any time to react. With a little smile on his face, still on to her hand tightly like she was going to fall of a huge cliff if he would let her hand go he finally answered: "When you are out of the hospital, we will have dinner at your favorite restaurant just me and you having a romantic candle light dinner. How does that sound?"

She smiled back at him and said: "I guess that makes the hospital food much more bearable, it's of course a great idea Tim and I'm anxiously looking forward to it." Delilah was pretty happy that her boyfriend would always know some way to cheer her up, if she had a bad day and that was only one of the many reason why she had fallen in love so quickly with him. Tim was also a great person because he didn't pretend to be something he wasn't; some of the men that she had dated enjoyed it very much to play the total macho but only because they were desperately trying to cover up their own weaknesses.

Back at the NCIS Headquarters Gibbs had arrived at Abby's lab immediately asking: "What do you have Abs?" The Goth pushed some buttons on the keyboard of her workstation and then said:

"I found the DNA of Bashir Malik on the bullet, that you've recovered from the scene Gibbs. He's a Pakistani National born in the US, spent some time in Parsa's hometown and was a suspect in the bombing at Camp Pendleton. He was arrested for assaulting a police officer but they were never able to actually proof that he planted the bomb in Pendleton."

Gibbs thought about all this for a moment: _*If it really was him who attacked the communications center in Pendleton, he went a very long time off the grid to get a lot more organized than back at 1990.*_

_AN: Thanks to- Toronto girl 12 and Gracfully for reviewing this story. Please read and review_


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Back at the bullpen Bishop was going through what they know about Malik Bashir so far, standing in front of the big screen in the center of the large office:" His father was Pakistani and his mother American, both of them died a long time ago." On the screen you could see Malik Bashir's driver's license and Dinozzo is meanwhile on the phone with a woman from the NCIS Archives requesting to send over the NIS Interrogation Tapes of Malik Bashir from 1990.

Ellie was about to continue reviewing the information they had on Bashir, when Gibbs apparently appeared out of nowhere like he always does and finally said: "Keep talking Bishop, I'm listening to every word you say." Bishop was a little bit shocked for a moment, because that was clearly something she still had to get used to: _*I really hate the way he creeps up on people, it's a little bit scary everytime.* _She then quickly recovered from this shocking moment and then continued with her little speech: "In 2002 he beat up a cop, as his car got mistaken for the one that had been used to kidnap a woman named Keely Jones. At the time of the attack on the communications center in Camp Pendleton, Bashir was employed as a truck driver for a fruit company and he only landed on the short list of suspects of the NIS Investigator because a witness had seen him at the crime scene just minutes before the attack. In the end they weren't able to find the person who did this, so this case was never solved. "

Of course all of this made Gibbs think: _*If Bashir had been behind the attack on Camp Pendleton the whole time, was a maybe just that kind of a pro that was able to cover his tracks that easily?* _Bishop then had the feeling, that she forgot something to say and so she finally continued: "Maybe Malik Bashir was behind the attack on the communications center, but was able to let all the evidence which would be able to convict him off the crime disappear. That would of course also pose the question: With how many other things did he get away all this this time from 1990 up until now?"

Jethro had to admit it was a pretty good theory so far, but like the people that lead the investigation back then in 1990 in Pendleton they needed to find some solid evidence to connect him to the drone attack. Tony finally stood up from the chair behind his desk: "I just got off the phone with the NCIS Archives, the NIS Agent that worked on the Pendleton bombing case in 1990 died two years ago but the Interrogation Tapes are on their way here."

"We definitely have to keep digging for any contacts and networks Bashir uses and has used with in the past because this might get us just a little closer to finding Parsa." Bishop says right after Tony has finished with reporting his news to Gibbs, who takes a short moment to think about their next move but thing was clearly for sure: Whatever they would do next they needed to act fast, because they didn't know if Parsa was still in the US.

Half an hour before lunch time at the hospital Delilah's parents finally arrive at the hospital, Sandra Fielding is the first to hug her daughter very tight and barely being able to keep the tears at bay she finally says after ending the hug: "Thank god you're awake again, me and your dad were so worried about you after Tim told us what happened. How are you feeling right now?"

Taking her time to recover from that stormy hug from her mother, Delilah finally replies: "I've felt better Mom, it really feels like my whole body is still hurting from the effects of the explosion and because my doctor is unsure if there's a relapse in my condition she will monitor it very closely by running a few test over the next two days."

Then her father hugged her too shortly, she could clearly see that he also had a very worried expression on his face and then he said: "No matter how long it takes, the only thing that matters right now is that you allow your body the time needs to recover."

"Yes Dad of course I will do that." Delilah answered and looked anxiously out of the door of her room for Tim, who had went to the Cafeteria a while ago to get himself something to drink and also probably call his teammates. He had told her that he didn't want them at the Hospital, because they needed to keep their focus on finding Benham Parsa and of course that had made her think: _*Didn't he maybe also want to be out there chasing Parsa, after he had hurt the woman he loved so much?*_

She really hoped that Tim could keep his strong feeling of wanting revenge at any cost at bay, because nobody was able to think clearly when they were out for revenge their mind was absolutely clouded because of all the rage buried deep down inside of them.

"Is Timothy also here at the hospital?" Her mother finally asked as she looked around in the little room and saw the chair standing right next to her daughter's bedside. That question made her wonder when he would finally be back, because she really missed him a lot already and that was surely something that she experienced for the first time ever in a relationship with a man. She thought about all of this for a short moment before she finally replied: "Yes Tim is also here, but he went to the hospital Cafeteria to call one of his colleagues at work and get himself something to eat at the same time."

Their parents then took the two remaining chairs in the room, placing them a little bit away from the one that Tim was sitting on and then Delilah said: "My Doctor has said to me right after the operation, that I can consider myself very lucky because nothing of the shrapnel has injured my spinal cord."

"I and your dad feared for the worst after we've heard from Tim what had happened at the Gala."

Her mother said and shortly strokes the right cheek of her daughter with one hand, being so glad that she was awake and would be at a hundred percent again very soon. Tim finally returned into the room a little bit later: "Hello Mister and Miss Fielding how was your drive to Washington?"

"Fortunately there wasn't so much traffic on the way from Wisconsin to DC as we expected and we are happy to have been able to get here that quick." Mister Fielding answered and then Tim finally sat down again right next to his girlfriend's bedside. He could see very well that she had missed him very much, even if he hadn't been away for that much long, so he shortly stood up again and kissed her gently on her forehead.

_AN: Thanks to- Gracfully and country ncis at lover for reviewing this story, Thanks to- sri2jc for adding this story to her/his favorite stories list and adding it to her/his story alert list, Thanks to- parallelintoperpendicular for adding this story to her/his favorite stories list, Thanks to- Gunther OH for adding this story to his story alert list, _


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

While Gibbs is waiting for the interrogation tapes to arrive, he send's Bishop and Dinozzo over to the NSA to see what they know about Parsa. After Tony and Bishop have finally left the office, Gibbs sits back down behind his desk trying to somehow get into the head of Parsa: _*He probably has ditched the car but is he already done her in the US or has he maybe still one little thing left to be done, before he can finally leave the country without catching the attention of the people who were after him?* _They definitely needed to find the car, because that way it would definitely close the distance between just a little bit his advance not being that big any more.

Benham Parsa was surely a very smart guy; Gibbs unfortunately had to give him that but he was very sure about one thing: No matter how long it would take, Parsa would make a big mistake one way or another and Gibbs was very determined to make sure personally that he was going to pay very dearly for what he did.

Back at the hospital a nurse entered Delilah's room: "Miss Fielding I'm here to take you to your CT." Because Delilah wasn't able to walk again on her own, the nurse had brought along a wheelchair to transport her patient to the first one of the series of tests. Mc Gee and his girlfriend's parents got out of the way so that the nurse had enough space to carefully move Delilah into the wheelchair and Tim surely hoped that the test results wouldn't be the cause of any concern. The rehab surely would be a difficult thing to master for her, but Tim was pretty sure of one thing right now: He was going to accompany her through the whole bumpy road and he had realized that his doubts towards this relationship had been just stupid. Getting to know Delilah had been the best thing, that ever happened in his entire life and unlike the other women in his life: Her love wasn't faked one bit, she wasn't going to use him in any way and after the whole gala disaster Tim wanted her to know: She could rely on him in the future without any doubt. She wasn't very willing to give even a tiny piece from her independence away, as she tried her best to get in the wheel chair on her own even if it really looked like she was going to fall to the ground at any moment and Mc Gee of course watched that scene play out in front of him with great concern being visible on his face and being ready to rush to her rescue the whole time.

But she was able to get into the wheelchair on her own at last, even if it took longer in the end than accepting the help from the nurse. _*She's definitely a fighter and I admire her for that strength, because not everybody would be able to get back up again that quick after escaping the grasp of death that close.* _Mc Gee thought as he watched her being driven away by the nurse to the CT and had squeezed her hand right before she left to reassure her that everything would be okay in the end.

Meanwhile at the NSA Office in Washington, Tony and Bishop met up with Sofia Martinez, the Subject Matter Expert for Hayat Parsa. As Martinez stands in front of a big screen in a big operations center, you can see a photo of Parsa's sister and some data that the NSA has collected on her up until now. "We have been monitoring her Hayat Parsa's calls for quite a while now, as far as we can tell there's been no direct communication with her brother recently but she has received numerous calls from a yet unknown caller. They used a couple of code words during all of the phone calls; our cryptologist department is still busy with trying to decipher their conversations.  
One thing is very clear in her case: She's very good in her job, protecting her brother from any harm and the calls haven't stopped there are still calls from unknown numbers and we believe that all those calls are about her brother we are just not sure yet what they want from him."

Tony could see that Bishop's mind was already now flooding with new questions and as also let that sink in for a while he thought: _*Are maybe some enemies after him and is it only one person that calls that much or different ones?* _One thing is for sure: They still were pretty much in the dark about Parsa's whereabouts and there will still probably a lot of unanswered questions on their minds.

Back at the NCIS Headquarters Gibbs was busy with studying the interrogation tapes of Bashir Malik very closely: "Your truck was spotted near the point where the point went off a few minutes later, far away from the entrance for the deliveries what were you doing there?" Gibbs can clearly see on Malik's face that he's taken aback by these outrageous accusations as he finally replied: "Sir, I'm not a terrorist I just move fruit from one place to another."

But the NIS Agent that interrogates him doesn't seem to be convinced by this and because Malik apparently senses, that the Agent doesn't believe him he continues: "Yes I was one block away from the bombing side, but only because to deliver fruit and to explain why my truck was parked at that unusual location: It was my first ever delivery to Camp Pendleton, so I didn't know where the entrance for the deliveries was."

Behind Gibbs the door opens almost silently, he turns around to see the NCIS Medical Examiner Ducky Mellard entering the room and after he pauses the interrogation video he says: "I want you to do a profile of Bashir Malik." Ducky looks at the man on the TV screen for a moment before he finally says: "Bashir doesn't look like he would bow to a newcomer like Parsa."

Gibbs has to admit that Ducky really has a point as he says: "Bashir really seems more human as I have imagined him as a possible suspect in the Camp Pendleton attack."

Back at the hospital Mc Gee has to think about the question: Has he really dealt already with what has happened at the black tie-gala or was he just trying his very best to block all the bad things out?

_AN: Thanks to- DS 2010 for reviewing this story and for adding it to her/his story alert list, Thanks to- Genius892050 for adding it to her favorite stories list, Thanks to- millieboreese for adding this story to her/his favorite stories list and adding it to her/his story alert list. Please read and review_


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Ducky finally leaves, leaving Gibbs alone with the interrogation tapes again. He continues to watch, trying to learn something new about the mysterious man named Bashir Malik that surprisingly doesn't sound like the typical terrorist: totally fanatic enemy of the West, no regrets when it came to killing innocent people. Like he had already said to Ducky: Bashir seemed to be very human, certainly not something that you would expect off an experienced bomber or was he just a good actor maybe?

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted, as Bishop opened the door to the observation room next to the interrogation room and said: "Metro PD has found Bashir's SUV; the car has been completely destroyed before Parsa ditched it." Gibbs let all this information sink for a while before he finally answered: "Okay thanks for the Information Bishop, tell Dinozzo to get the car ready and I'll be in the garage shortly." Ellie Bishop just nodded closed the door behind her again; Jethro then quickly turned off the TV and put the current tape back into the case before he headed back to the bullpen to get his gear.

Back at the hospital Mc Gee surprisingly meets Doctor Rachel Cranston in the hallway in front of Delilah's room and of course he wonders, what exactly her reason is to be here right now as she says: "Agent Mc Gee, I'm Doctor Rachel Cranston and I was appointed to be the Crisis Counselor for the survivors of the explosion at the gala." Alone the two words crisis counselor gives him a very uncomfortable feeling, stirring all this memory up into the open again because they were just too painful to deal with right now. Maybe he should consider opening up to Doctor Cranston, telling her all the fears that are haunting since the drone attack or are those memories going to make him collapse totally when he allows them to fully surface? He searches for the words to say, because deep down he could barely keep his negative emotions in check what sends him in a big dilemma: Because on the other hand he knows, that he needs to cover up all his hatred for Parsa or else his clouded judgment would get him into big trouble. _*They wouldn't let me work on the case anymore and I wouldn't get the chance to help personally putting this bastard to justice.* _

Trying to sound as neutral as possible he finally replied: "Delilah is doing fine so far, of course she's going to have to do a long rehab before she's back at a hundred percent." Of course Doctor Cranston somehow senses the discomfort of Mc Gee, as she mentions the drone attack again and that could only mean one thing: He was definitely hiding something from her but in the end it was never a good idea to push people, because people that were traumatized in that way like all those being hurt in the drone attack needed the time to sort things out with themselves before opening up to a stranger.

"Okay that sounds good so far but don't forget, if you feel the need to talk somebody about what has happened today I'll be in the hospital for a while being ready at any time to listen." Doctor Cranston said, hoping deep down that Mc Gee would take her up on the offer because the alternative wasn't healthy for anyone: Trying to block all the feelings of rage until you couldn't take it anymore and it all came out in a very violent explosion of anger.

Tim tried his best to force a little smile on his face as he replied: "Thanks for the offer but I'm doing fine myself so far Doctor Cranston." Then Rachel Cranston finally turned around heading to another room down the aisle, where probably some other people were pretty much more open about their feelings unlike Agent Mc Gee.

The rest of the team had finally arrived at the alley, where Metro PD had found the totally destroyed SUV that had been driven by Malik Bashir and with the car being totally burned down by an explosive they surely wouldn't find any useable evidence inside it. Gibbs had an angry look on his face, as looked at the little message that was left behind by Parsa on the windshield of the car: Try again.

Jethro ordered the car to be towed back to NCIS Headquarters; maybe they would find a tiny piece of evidence that had been forgotten by Parsa before he destroyed the SUV. Tony shortly notifies Gibbs, that Homeland Security is also in on the case now before they finally headed back to the office and hopefully Abby would be able to find some things that they had maybe missed on first sight.

During the drive back to the NCIS HQ, Gibbs couldn't get those two words out of his head: Try again because he deep down had the feeling like this had been some kind of sick game for Parsa since the very beginning.

Delilah was finally being driven back into the room again, Mc Gee also stepping inside after he had quickly answered a concerned message from Abby on his cellphone. Of course he wanted to help with finding Parsa, but on the other hand he didn't want to leave his girlfriend's side not right now because he somehow was blaming himself for what had happened to her. He tried his very best to ban these negative thoughts out of his mind because he didn't want her to worry about his mental well-being too much, all she needed to focus on right now was recovering from the effects of the explosion and he would help her the whole long road of recovery in the best way possible.

Abby shortly looks on the screen of her cellphone, as a new message from Mc Gee arrives: _Delilah is going to be okay, but it will take a while to get back to a hundred percent. _She was happy to read that Tim's girlfriend wasn't injured that bad in the end but the whole chase for Parsa had been very stressful for all of them so far.

Finally she found something very odd directly under the car: There some very unusual looking bolts that definitely didn't belong there and so she figured that she had to show Gibbs those things.

_Thanks to- STANathanXOox for dding this story to her story alert list, Thanks to- Gracfully and Toronto Girl 12 for reviewing this story. Please read and review_


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Down in the evidence garage Abby is still busy with searching for any more useful evidence in and under the car. Gibbs meanwhile stands near by the car, and as she crawls out from under the car she says: "I understand that Parsa needed to ditch to the car after you've got his windows blown out and would be able to identify it but why blow it up?" Gibbs thought about what the Goth had just said and had to admit that she got a point there: _*did he try to hide anything special from them that had been inside the car?* _Finally he then said: "He probably needed to get rid of the DNA evidence in the car, because he definitely knew that the people who chased him, would find his DNA and the one of his accomplice who drove the SUV and probably dropped him off at his next destination."

"You could be right Gibbs, but I think it has another reason: I found some unusual bolts under the car and that means that something had installed under the car that Parsa definitely didn't want us to find but unfortunately I don't know yet what that could be." The Goth said but she was clearly determined to find out, what was the actual reason that Parsa blow up the car in the end because like the rest of the team she wanted to get this bastard as quick as possible. As Gibbs finally left the evidence garage, Abby looked at the car as she thought: _I'm going to find all the secrets that you're hiding one way or another!_

Back at the Hospital Mc Gee can see that it gets dark outside, he looks at his watch rubbing his eyes for a second realizing now how tired he is but he probably wouldn't admit it to anyone that asked him. Delilah meanwhile also did her very best fighting a maybe useless battle against sleep, but on the other hand she really didn't know if closing her eyes and letting sleep take over her would be the best idea.

It didn't go by Tim unnoticed that something was clearly troubling his girlfriend, so he finally asked: "Is everything alright? Maybe I'm wrong but judging from the look on your face you're definitely troubled by something and I can help if you want to talk." She looked around in the room for a while; it was now only her and Tim because her parents had left to head for a hotel near the hospital and she really didn't know if she should bother him with her problems. "It's just that I still try to digest all that has happened today and I can't believe that you and I were right in the middle of a terror attack." Delilah lied even if she felt a little bad about it, but she didn't want to add her emotional scars to his because making her boyfriend to feel worse than he probably already does was the last thing she wanted at this moment.

Tim had to think about that for a moment: _Was she telling the truth or does she hide something from me? _ Of course jumping to any conclusion would get him nowhere, so he softly strokes her hand as he took hers into his and says: "I totally can understand that, because I feel the same way right about now but we will get through this together okay?"

She weakly smiled at him, being so thankful again for all the support from him and finally just nodded. They just looked at each for quite a while, the silence between them being not uncomfortable one bit and she could see how tired also Tim was. She has to fight the urge very hard to don't yawn herself as she says: "You look very tired, I'm really thankful for the fact that you were here by my bedside all these hours but it's really okay if you go now and get some well-deserved sleep." Of course she would certainly miss lying next to him in bed all these hours of the night, like they always did over the last three years of their relationship but that was something that she had to life with for the time she had to stay here at the hospital.

Of course Tim knew deep down that she was right, even if it was very difficult for him that he couldn't stay with her the whole night. He shortly looked at his watch, the visiting hours were almost over and after yawning shortly he finally replied:

"I guess you're right, I really hope that you have a good night and I already miss you a lot." Then he got up from his chair, headed for the door that lead back into the corridor outside of his girlfriend's room as he was stopped by her calling out for him one last time: "Hey, don't I get a little goodnight kiss?" He smiled at her as he turned around again to face her, stepped nearer to her bed to give her a short peck on the mouth but instead she suddenly deepened the kiss longing for access into his mouth with her tongue and for a short moment he was very surprised by that bold move from her. Mc Gee finally recovered from this unexpected move, granted her tongue entrance into his mouth kissed her back with a lot of passion and for a couple of minutes time became an irrelevant factor for them.

Meanwhile Gibbs sits in the interrogation room, asking the Master Sargent that has spotted Malik Bashir in 1990 near the Communications Center in Camp Pendleton even this very stressful case really starts to take his toll on him. But deep down he knew that he couldn't give up now, he didn't want Parsa to keep the upper hand in this "war" even if he still had practically no idea yet to get one step closer to him. "I saw Mister Bashir's truck near the Communications Center on this day in 1990 instead of the unloading point in the front in of the building and figured that he had probably parked his truck in the alley to quickly plant the bomb and saying that he was making a delivery for the first time to explain his presence." Master Sargent Chris Peters says and waits for Gibbs reaction after this, silently hoping that he is already done here.

Jethro thinks about all of this a moment and had to ask himself: _Was there an accomplice with him to watch if anything would go according to plan or was Bashir really that experienced that he exactly knew how much time he had without anyone on the base would suspect that something was totally off? _

_AN: Thanks to- Hot Dog 8 for reviewing this story, Thanks to- MoonlitShadowsoftheHumanSoul for adding this story to her favorite stories list, Thanks to- Brightleaf for adding this story to her story alert list, Thanks to-beverlie4055 for adding this story to her story alert list. Please read and review_


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

At NCIS Headquarters Gibbs is busy with going through the interrogation tapes of Malik Bashir again, even if he doesn't know yet what he exactly is searching but his gut feeling tells him that he will find it on the tapes one way or another. Meanwhile Mc Gee has arrived at home, somehow doubting that he will be able to find any sleep with Parsa being still at large somewhere out there. _But Am I even mentally fit enough to go all through this more stress tonight or should I stay home and let the rest of the team do their work? _

He continues to think about this for a couple of minutes, as sits on a chair in the dark kitchen and some voice deep down inside him keeps on practically yelling in his thoughts: _You have to help in the search for this bastard before he hurts anybody else, it's your duty as a Federal Agent of NCIS! _But there's also still all that rage boiled up inside of him against the man that was responsible for putting the woman he loved so much in the hospital.

Still sitting alone in this dimly lit room, looking at the interrogation Tapes of the man that could be their big lead in the Parsa case he finally finds exactly the clue that he had been searching for quite a while now: _"Sir I'm not a terrorist, I just move things from one place to another." _ _*So Bashir wasn't alone in Pendleton on this day, he drove the actual person who planted the bomb to his target!* _He stopped the tape at this point and this new discovery made him realize one other thing: Bashir had been hired by Parsa to help him disappear, quickly he leaves the observation lounge to head to the autopsy so that he could share this new insight with Ducky.

While riding down to the Autopsy Gibbs kept asking himself the same question over and over again: How big was Parsa already in advance of them and could they catch in time before the trail would run cold? He had to admit to himself that this case was pretty challenging, it hadn't happen that often in his career at NCIS to stand across that smart adversaries: The most criminals he had chased had always made one tiny mistake, that had been enough in the end to cost them dearly but Benham Parsa was a total different story. He couldn't help but to deep down have the feeling, that he was slipping through his hands because he seemed to know every move Gibbs was going to make in advance and he absolutely hated to be outsmarted. As the elevator finally came to a halt at the basement of the building, Gibbs quickly left it headed through the long corridor in a fast pace because he was sure of one thing: Time was a good that couldn't afford to waste in this case.

Gibbs finally steps through the doors into Ducky's world and shortly after those had silently closed he said: "I've got some news in our case, Malik didn't plant the bomb in Camp Pendleton in 1990 instead he drove the actual bomber to his target and used the fruit delivery as a cover and that adds his name to a probably long list of Parsa's hired guns." Ducky lets that sink in for a minute, but before he can say anything Gibbs is already out of the door again and so he turns his attention back to the psychological profile of the dangerous terrorist named Benham Parsa.

Meanwhile Mc Gee decides to head back to work, because he figured that he just can't sit at home and do nothing. He knows that he can keep his personal feelings about Parsa out of the way during the investigation; instead he channels all that energy he has inside of himself to help putting that bastard to justice even if a part inside of him wanted to put a bullet in his head personally.

But in the end he couldn't let his personal rage fantasies interfere with his job or else Gibbs would probably make sure personally, that he gets back home and stays there till Tim's head is finally clear again. As he has to stop at a red light, he couldn't help but wonder what Delilah would think about all of this: Maybe she would advise him to get some rest because he had been through a lot already today and deep down he knew, that she in fact did know that he was hiding something from her because most of the time he was really like an open book to her.

Meanwhile back at the hospital Doctor Cranston has finished the last talk with a victim of the Congress Gala and she can't get that one thought out of her: Something was definitely off with Agent Mc Gee, but she couldn't exactly tell what it was just yet. Because of the fact someone had to declare him fit for duty again, she would definitely have the opportunity to dig a little deeper into this issue but deep down she maybe a little bit of an idea what he was exactly trying so hard to hide from her: He wanted revenge against Parsa and if that really was the case, that meant that his judgment was impaired and it was her duty to tell that Agent Gibbs.

She finally left the hospital through the main entrance and she really couldn't imagine how much emotional pain all the victims that had survived this horrible attack on the Congress Gala were, because she probably just had scratched the surface of this huge amount of pain today. As she walked through the seemingly endless rows of cars on the large parking space in front of the hospital, she had to ask herself if she was even able to get Mc Gee to open up to her because making someone admit that he was trying to bury his real feelings inside of him could be a very hard thing to do sometimes in her experience. On the other side of the city Mc Gee had finally reached the NCIS Headquarters, after he had got out his badge and the NCIS ID he walked in the most relaxed way possible towards the entrance of the building.

_AN: Thanks to- Eraseus for adding this story to his/her favorite stories list and adding it to her/his story alert list, Thanks to- sbcoke for adding this story to her/his story alert list. Please read and review_


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Inside NCIS Headquarters Gibbs heads back to the evidence garage, while Bishop sits on the floor in front of her desk still totally busy with looking at some papers concerning the big Parsa case and directly next to her on the floor stands a paper coffee cup to keep awake on this very stressful day at work. She knew from experience how much of a smart opponent Benham Parsa was, it nearly was impossible to be one step in front of him because he would always know the right move to make and make your attempt of getting just a little closer totally useless.

As Abby waited for Gibbs to arrive, she of course kept wondering what Mc Gee was doing right now: Was he still with Delilah in the hospital or already at home and taking some well-deserved rest? Of course she had been totally worried as she heard off the explosion at the Congress Gala, already thinking the worst as the hours went by and there had been no news from her good friend. The Goth really didn't know what she would have done, if Tim hadn't survived this day but one thing was pretty much clear to her: It definitely would have devastated her emotionally, because Tim and the rest of the team were all part of her second family. Finding out about the actual use of the bolts, had kind of amazed her just a little bit: Someone had got rid of the gas tank under the car and had replaced it with some kind of container like thing that was stable enough to hold one human being. Meanwhile Mc Gee had finally entered the building, but instead of taking the elevator up the to the main office right away he decided to stop by Abby's lab and really hoped that she didn't mention the attack on the gala in any way because he was doing his very best to ban all thoughts about that out of his mind for his own good.

Of course he would come across the thought, of maybe opening up to anyone from the team about what had happened but not right now because he needed to totally focus on the more important thing: Finding the dangerous terrorist Benham Parsa. As he walked through the long corridor to the Goth's lab, it occurred to him that he had to be declared fit for duty again. The NCIS Regulations required all NCIS personnel that had been involved in some kind of event that could have an effect on their judgment in the job to be checked out by a psychologist and he honestly didn't know how to get through that without letting out his true feelings.

Meanwhile Gibbs finally arrived at the evidence garage and asked without any hesitation: "What do you got for me Abs?" The Goth then went to a notebook, standing on a little table near to the black SUV and said: "I was finally able to determine for what these strange bolts have been used for. The gas tank of the SUV has been removed to make enough space for a big compartment directly under the car that is big enough to hold one person."

_So Parsa probably was in the compartment before it got blown up, because it would definitely be the best way to get through any established road blocks from local leos without getting caught. _ He then handed her the Caff Pow as her usual reward for a job well done, gently kissed her on her forehead and said before he left: "Good Job Abs and notify me immediately if you find anything else." Figuring that Abby had to be in the evidence garage, after the lab was completely empty Mc Gee continued to walk through the long corridor, and suddenly froze in the middle of his step as he and Gibbs paths crossed.

The two just looked at each for a while, both of them not quite sure of what to say right now but then Gibbs finally decided to break the silence before it would get too uncomfortable: "It's good to see you alive and well Tim, how are you feeling right now?" Mc Gee could see the obvious concern from his boss, but he also had to ask himself also: Was he able to fool Gibbs about the mental condition he was in right now? His boss had proven in the past, that he was capable to read him like an open book on several occasions but Gibbs doubting, that he was fit for duty again was really the last thing he needed because he just wanted to do the best he could to help in the search for Parsa.

"Besides some minor bruises after the direct contact with a part of the c4 explosion shockwave I'm doing as could as it is possible under this circumstances and I'm ready to go back to work again."

Tim answered without any hesitation and as he anxiously waited for his boss response, he hoped that he could also keep his emotional walls up in front of Doctor Cranston even if she tried her best to dig very deep into his mind.

"Let Doctor Cranston check you out first, then you can get back to work Tim." Gibbs said, deep down having the feeling that Mc Gee wasn't completely honest to him because he had experienced in the past that he could be very much impulsive if he wanted it.

He just nodded in response and Gibbs continued his way back to the main office, wondering if Rachel Cranston would declare him fit for duty again without a doubt. Of course he wanted Mc Gee to be back at work, but he certainly didn't like it when one of the people that were working with him kept secrets from him. Mc Gee finally arrived in the evidence garage; he looked at the Goth being totally being busy with finding any more useful evidence in the SUV but stopped for a moment as Tim stepped nearer to her and shortly tipped on her shoulder.

For a short moment Abby wondered if the silver haired Fox Gibbs had actually forgot something, but as she saw who was standing in front of her, a big smile appeared on her face shortly before she finally said: "I'm so happy to see you alive and well Mc Gee, me and the others were really worried about you a lot." Of course Tim is pretty touched by this, the Goth always knowing the right words to cheer him up if he was down and this made all that pain just a little bit more bearable.

After some silence between them, Abby was the first to speak again as she asked: "Can I visit Delilah at some time?" Tim had to think about that question for a while of course, because he certainly didn't want Delilah to overstrain herself in this vulnerable state that she was still in.

"Of course you can see her, when she doesn't feel that weak anymore." Tim replied in a very diplomatic voice and then he finally left the evidence garage heading for the main office again.

Meanwhile Gibbs was on the phone with Doctor Cranston, updating her a bit about Mc Gee: "It's good to know that I'm not the only one that noticed that Agent Mc Gee is somehow secretive about one certain thing."

_AN: Thanks to- Toronto girl 12 and Gracfully for reviewing this story and a huge thanks goes to all the people that have added this story to their favorite stories and their story alert lists. I hope that you all keep enjoying reading this as much as I enjoy writing it._

_Please read and review_


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

After Doctor Cranston had finally finished the phone conversation with Agent Gibbs, she got in her car tot he leave the premises of the Jefferson Hospital and directly head to the NCIS Headquarters. Deep down she knew, that it wouldn't be easy to reach out to her newest patient: Timothy Mc Gee but she just had to find some way to find out what exactly was bothering him so much. Was his girlfriend's medical condition really that good or was he trying to hide how bad it was in reality?

Before doing some more talking to Mc Gee Doctor Cranston could only do one thing: Speculate about the real reason for his little odd behavior towards her and Agent Gibbs and she really hated to do that.

As sleep finally caught up with her at this very late hour of the day, she shortly yawned but still focused on the traffic in front of her of course realizing that she had to take a little coffee break, before she could continue her trip to the NCIS Headquarter on the other side of the city. Meanwhile Mc Gee had arrived in the main office, Tony of course having a very concerned look on her face as he finally diverted his attention from the screen of his PC to his colleague and very good friend and wished that there was one thing he could say to ease Tim's emotional pain just a little bit. He stood up from behind his desk, after Tim had reached his desk and sat down behind it and searched for the right words to say because he just didn't want the silence between get uncomfortable in any way.

Tim is of course wondering why Tony stands in front of his desk, but as he studies his friend's mimic a little more he can clearly see something that rarely sees on the face of Tony Dinozzo: Concern for a good friend and colleague. Tony takes one deep breath before he finally says: "It's good to see that you've made it back in piece Tim, how is Delilah doing after the explosion at the Gala?" Of course Tim is thankful on one hand for the concern from his fellow co-workers at the office but on the other hand, it's also very painful for him to get all these images from the point of the explosion and right after it stirred up again and again.

He does his very best again to block all this painful pictures from his mind, even if the most people would tell him that he absolutely can't run away from these memories forever even if he wants to but he just wasn't ready to handle all of this emotional stress just yet. He searched for the right words to say at this moment to not divert any more attention on him: "She is doing as good as possible under the circumstances; the doctors were thankfully able to stop the bleeding but there will be long road of recovery ahead of her."

"That's good to hear and if you need anyone to talk about what's happened, you know that I'm a very good listener." Tony replied and then got back to his desk, while Bishop has shifted her papers to MTAC preparing for an incoming video conference call with her NSA Colleague Sofia Martinez to talk about Parsa's sister Hayat.

As Sofia Martinez picture finally appeared on the big screen in MTAC, Bishop who sat on the floor as usual immediately asked her: "What do you got for me on Parsa's sister Hayat?"

"We have intercepted a lot of in-code phone conversation between Hayat and the unknown owner of a prepaid mobile phone but one of them stands out under the current circumstances. She mentioned three numbers in one phone conversation: 180, 60, 45 and said that it is not enough but unfortunately nobody from the people who works on this matter knows what those numbers mean." Sofia replied to Ellie's question and was now waiting for a reaction from her.

Bishop let this information sink in for a while before she finally spoke again: "The way I see it those numbers seem to be a very important factor for Hayat Parsa, we just have to find out what they stand for. "

"I guess that I will keep doing some research considering those numbers and if I find something interesting I'll get back to you okay?" Sofia answered back and she really hoped that they would be able to solve this puzzle before Parsa was out of their reach.

"Okay and I hope that we can find something about those numbers here at NCIS." Ellie replied and then finally ended the video conference call with the NSA to head back to the bullpen, to update the rest of the team on her newest findings in the Parsa Case.

Finally Doctor Cranston arrives in main office of the NCIS Headquarter, Mc Gee of course already knowing all too well what was coming next: His fit for duty evaluation and he wasn't that sure if he would pass that one so easily. Cranston shortly stops at Gibbs desk and says: "Is there a room where I and Agent Mc Gee can talk in private?"

"The Office of Director Vance is the only free room right now, since he's absent because of a conference outside of DC." Gibbs shortly replies before Tim accompanies her upstairs to the office of the director of NCIS. Bishop finally comes down the stairs, telling the rest of the Team of her newest findings considering Parsa: "Just ended a video conference call with Sofia Martinez from NSA and she has found out something very interesting, Parsa's was mentioning the three numbers 180, 60, 45 and that it is not enough and I think that those numbers could be related to the compartment that was blown up under the SUV."

Back at Director Leon Vance's Office, Cranston and Mc Gee sit down in the two chairs and Cranston finally starts to talk: "Tell where you were during the explosion?"

"I was outside when it happened." Mc Gee replies in his most possible controlled voice, even if it's definitely pretty hard to keep all the anger hidden from Doctor Cranston but he knows what the alternative is: She will advise Gibbs to take him off the Parsa case and that was the last thing he wanted. He knew that wasn't going to be easy to hide his real emotions, but that's what he needed to do because he couldn't sit at home and do nothing it would definitely make him feel totally useless.

"How did you feel about Delilah still being inside?"

"I was worried for her of course….but I knew that she would make it out alive." Mc Gee replied and deep down he hoped that this little pause in mid-sentence didn't raise any suspicion. He just had faltered because of the fact that this horrible picture had come up in his mind again: Seeing the badly injured body of his girlfriend and a doctor telling him that she didn't make it. But of course it didn't go by Doctor Cranston unnoticed, because she knew it all too well that a lot of people were trying very hard to block some negative emotions.

As Mc Gee somehow could sense the very sceptic look from Rachel Cranston he said to avoid any more misunderstandings: "She's fine and me too and I'm really ready to get to work again. "

_Thanks to- Toronto Girl 12 and Gracfully for reviewing this story, Thanks to- Cearra for adding this story to her/his story alert list, Thanks to- JennyLyn91 for adding this story to her story alert list._

_Please read and review_


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Doctor Cranston doesn't seem very convinced, the fact that Mc Gee was struggling with his words proves to her one thing: There's really something that he tries to hide very hard from her and his colleagues. She writes something on a piece of paper, which is attached to a little notepad and those case are very difficult to solve: How could she get Timothy Mc Gee to open up, get him to stop shutting her and everybody else out?

"What are you writing Doctor Cranston?"

"I'm writing that you're giving the perfect responses." Doctor Cranston replies in a very neutral voice and she knows, that she has to tell Gibbs her doubts of Agent Mc Gee being fit for duty again and deep down she hopes that he may be able to reach out to him. She tries one more time to get through his emotional wall just a little bit as she asks: "Is it just me or are you shutting everyone else out too? Because I know from experience that it doesn't end good, when people try very hard to hide their emotions instead of opening up to anyone they trust."

"I just need your signature Doctor Cranston to finally finish this whole thing up." Mc Gee said and Doctor Cranston could hear the little change in his voice, what certainly indicated some high level of avoidance. He then stormed out of the office, trying so hard to not let his rage cause a big emotional explosion that he would probably regret afterwards. But deep down also thought to him: Who was he trying to fool here? He wasn't over the fact, that his girlfriend almost died today in a big attack planned by a very dangerous terrorist and even if he didn't want to admit to himself or anybody else: He felt so much hate for Parsa, that he wanted to be the one to personally put a bullet in his head to end all this once and for all. But there was also one bigger part, that kept telling him that he couldn't allow himself to feel that way because after all he was bound the laws of this country as a Federal Agent at NCIS. Back at his desk he just wants to forget about what has happened just a few minutes ago, him getting a little bit agitated at Doctor Cranston because she was hesitant to sign the paperwork and declare him fit for duty.

"Parsa could have only built the compartment under the car in the first place, to either ship the car internationally or cross the Mexican border without being detected." Gibbs said to the rest of the team and of course he knew that something significant must have happened for Parsa to change his original escape plan which his sister was definitely aware of. "I wonder if they use the metric system in Pakistan, Abby said that the compartment had probably the size of 2 feet by 1.5 feet so maybe those three numbers are also referencing the size." Mc Gee meanwhile works on his computer to translate those two numbers into centimeters, already being in full work mode again all those negative feelings being totally forgotten for now.

Finally the special Program on his computer shows the estimated size of the compartment under the car in centimeters: 180 x 60 x 45 and that means that their theory had been proved right at the end. Mc Gee then finally announces: "You were right Tony, those three numbers that Hayat Parsa mentioned are about the size of the compartment." Of course that makes the wheels spin in Gibbs head again as he says: "The loyalty to her brother is just too big, that she would betray him no matter how much pressure we would put on her in the interrogation so there's only way left: We somehow have to use her loyalty against her."

Later that day Gibbs goes home, knowing really well that he needs to have a clear head before he can continue to work on this very stressful Parsa Case and as he looks at Mc Gee for a short moment he can't help but ask himself over and over again: Is he really fit for work again, or is my gut feeling right again on this one and there's something that he tries so hard to hide? Of course he knew that it had been a very difficult day for Mc Gee, as he almost lost the one woman he loved so much but trying to block out an emotional state of shock did have negative impact on your judgment in this job at the end.

Sleep finally had caught up with Mc Gee even if he fought very hard to not let it win in the end, because he was so afraid of those horrible pictures that would keep popping into his memory over and over again: He being at Delilah's funeral, looking into her face on last time as he stands right in front of the open casket. As one single tear tried to make its way down his right cheek, he had to fight hard again to keep his emotions in check in front of the two colleagues that were still sitting in the office because he surely didn't want them to suspect anything.

As he shortly wiped some sleep away out of his eyes, he wondered if Delilah would be able to sleep tonight or was she also much troubled as him by the horrible images that kept flooding her mind too because of being personally involved in a terror attack? He hadn't asked her that before he left the hospital, because he just wanted to be happy that his girlfriend was still alive and not dead like so many other innocent people. Was it may be foolish to think, that he could handle all this emotional stress on his own? May be he sees it that way right now, because he had seen worst in all of his years as a NCIS Federal Agent right?

Or maybe this whole situation was totally different: He was more emotionally involved in this one, because of Delilah being heavily injured the woman he was in love with for three years now.

_Thanks to- Crawcolady for reviewing this story, Thanks to- Toronto Girl 12 for reviewing this story._

_Please read and review_


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Tim tries to get his mind off these negative thoughts, as he researches the financial records of their only suspect in the Parsa Case: Malik Bashir. Gibbs had finally decided to let him go for now, after he had a brick wall in the interrogation because he knew that he couldn't crack the wall that he had established around himself. He deep down knew that he could do another thing for sure: Make him nervous enough to slip one way or another and then Gibbs would be there to catch him.

Mc Gee really hoped that Gibbs gut feeling was right again on this one, because Malik Bashir was their lead to Parsa at the moment and they definitely couldn't afford to let him slip through their hands.

With a very concerned look on his face, Tony looks at Mc Gee wondering why his colleague didn't got himself the well-deserved rest that he needed so much right now. But it seems to him that whatever was bothering him in the end, he didn't want to open up to anyone even if it was so obvious for every silent observer that Mc Gee was emotionally suffering very much. Dinozzo just hoped that the moment, Tim realized that he needed to talk to someone about his feelings arrived really soon because he hated to see his good friend that sad.

The next morning Gibbs returned to the Headquarters, of course wanting a update on the case because he knew that time was definitely running out: "What do you got for me on Bashir Malik?"

Mc Gee typed away on the keyboard of his computer and put the financial records of Bashir on the big screen as he said: "His financial records support the theory that he was hired a lot to make people disappear because I found a couple of small irregular payment on his bank account, beginning from the time that Keely Jones suddenly disappeared. His time at Wellspring Fruit certainly allowed him to get unlimited access to trains, trucks and cargo plans and FBI and Homeland are busy with looking into his contacts right now." Gibbs let's all that information sink in for a moment, then he shortly steps in front of Mc Gee's desk and says: "You look exhausted Tim, so please do me the favor and take it easy okay?"

Mc Gee of course hates the fact that Gibbs is always able to read him like an open book and that also makes him think for a moment: Did Gibbs knew that something was off with him?

He just nodded in response, and then watched Gibbs head upstairs to MTAC as he had been busy to set up a video conference call with the NSA and the CIA about Hayat Parsa. As Gibbs enters MTAC he has to ask himself: Should he ask Mc Gee about his feelings or let him figure it on his own? That clearly was the one million dollar question right now, he only knew one thing for sure: He needed all the people who worked for him to be at their very best, nothing should distract them in this very stressful and time consuming job or else you should probably think about doing only work behind a desk.

He put these thoughts to a rest for now because he needed to stay focused on catching Benham Parsa, this guy that always seemed to be one step ahead of them.

Gibbs finally signaled the man that sat at the little workstation on the left side of the room to put the

Representatives from the CIA and the NSA on the big screen at MTAC. Agent Pierce from the CIA was the first to speak: "As you have requested Agent Gibbs our embedded Agent J has told Hayat Parsa that her brother's escape plan went wrong in a big way and he's in imminent danger right now."

"While the CIA is watching out for some movement at Hayat Parsa's house, the NSA is continuously monitoring every incoming and outgoing call from her and even if already eight minutes have passed since she has got the news I highly suggest that we keep waiting." Sofia Martinez shortly said after that knowing that they would probably regret it in a big way if they acted too soon.

Jethro definitely agrees on Martinez assessment of the current situation as he says: "Okay keep me posted on any new developments at Hayat's house."

"Of course we will do that Agent Gibbs." Agent Pierce from the CIA said shortly before also Sofia Martinez from the NSA made absolutely clear: "You can also be very sure of the full cooperation from NSA on this one Agent Gibbs."

Gibbs finally ended the video conference call, and then he heads out of the door to get back to the big main office downstairs hoping that Hayat wouldn't think all this through for all too long. He surely had to admit to himself that patience really wasn't one of his virtues but of course he didn't want anybody to know that, so he kept the little bit of impatience deep inside of him as good contained as possible.

Back at the hospital Delilah is with her parents, she just has returned to her room from another test and her parents are pretty happy to hear that their daughter's doctor is very optimistic considering the prognosis of the healing process. She tries very hard to hide the fact from her doctor that she had a horrible first night at the hospital because she has been haunted by the scary pictures of the terror attack, making her toss and turn the entire night. She really missed Tim being at her side right now, knowing that only would truly understand all this emotional pain if she would be able to tell him but one part of her kept saying: Don't tell him because he probably has enough on his plate already because of the very stressful Parsa case and she didn't want him to be distracted from his work in any way.

Meanwhile at NCIS Headquarters, Sofia Martinez called Gibbs notifying of the fact, that Hayat Parsa was receiving a call from an unknown US Number. Gibbs reacted in an instance, telling Mc Gee the number to trace after he had quickly wrote it down on a post-it that lay on his desk the whole time.

Mc Gee quickly entered the prepaid mobile phone number into the trace program on his computer, then patiently waiting for it to reveal the location of the yet unknown caller from inside the US. The Program was finally finished searching as it displayed the exact location of the caller and Mc Gee finally announced to Gibbs: "I found it boss, the phone call is coming from an old warehouse on 42nd Street West."

Gibbs then says: "Okay good job Tim, Bishop and Dinozzo head to the warehouse and call Homeland and FBI to arrange that they meet you at the address. "

_AN: Thanks to- crawcolady for reviewing this story Thanks to- Gracfully for reviewing this story, Thanks to- Toronto Girl 12 for reviewing this story. Please read and review_


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Of course Mc Gee kind of knows why he has to stay behind in the office: Not only Doctor Cranston has doubts, that he's fit for duty again even if he had proved them wrong in his opinion. Gibbs finally looks up from the paperwork on his desk as he says: "Doctor Cranston want to have another talk with you about today's events in the office of the director right now." Tim of course didn't like the fact, that Gibbs sidelined him a little bit in this investigation because he wanted and deserved to work on the Parsa Case and he certainly hadn't made any mistakes since he had been back behind his desk.

Meanwhile at the hospital, Delilah gets her breakfast served after her doctor Jean Parker has informed her and her parents that there will some more tests today.

In between helping her daughter a little bit with eating her mother looks at her with a very concerned look on her face as she says: "Sweetie you look really tired, is everything okay besides your known symptoms? "Her daughter chews on the first bites of her bread with butter and marmalade for a while, searching for the right words to say right now without upsetting her parents any more. _Should I tell them about my bad dreams last night? _ Delilah surely wasn't sure if that was a good idea, because she certainly didn't want their parents to think that she was so much traumatized that she needed to go and see a shrink. That was something that she would get through on her own one way or another and what mattered the most to her was only one thing: Getting back to her work at the DOD, even if she didn't consider herself to be a total workaholic she surely felt useless lying in bed the most time of the day.

After she finally had her mouth empty again Delilah said: "I appreciate your concern a lot mom, but because the bed isn't that comfy than mine at home I just didn't sleep that well as I usually do." Of course she did feel a little bit after having just lied to her mom and dad, who she loved so much and certainly hasn't lied to ever before today but she just wasn't ready yet to talk about the things that bothered her, so much even if she knew that both of them would be willing to help in any way possible. Her mother seemed to be satisfied with that answer for now, but deep down Delilah knew that she would be forced to end this little charade one way or another.

Back at the NCIS Headquarters, Gibbs was struggling a little bit what to do right now: Should he confront Mc Gee because of his suspicion that he thought, he wasn't telling him everything that he needed to know. On the other hand it really wasn't the case that he was good at things like this, getting through to his little daughter when she had some kind of problem had been a lot easier probably but Mc Gee was a grown up young man.

He had been successful in the past, telling the young agent to keep his emotions under control as he clearly the feeling that Tim's emotions got in the way of doing his job but maybe this case was totally different: Tim maybe trying very hard to bury the negative emotions deep inside of him and it never ended good if you choose to not open up to anyone you could trust.

_I really wonder if I or Doctor Cranston will be able to break this emotional barrier down, which Tim had apparently put in place according to the report from Doctor Cranston. I hope that he lets us help him carry this huge emotional burden or either I really have to think about pulling the only option that's left in the worst case: Sent him home to get his head clear. _ Of course Gibbs hoped that Mc Gee wouldn't force him to completely sideline him in this case, because he has always valued Tim's work in and outside the office very high never doubting that he could do more than just the desk job.

Meanwhile Tim was sitting down with Rachel Cranston again and the wheels in her head where moving right now, as she tried to find some kind of way to breach that emotion barrier of her current very difficult patient. One thing was totally clear to her: She needed to handle this whole delicate situation very carefully or else he would never ever let his emotional walls down for her. After she had finally thought about the right thing to say for long enough Doctor Cranston said: "

"You know that I have my doubts about the fact, that you should work again already and I want to tell you personally right now why. From long years of experience in my profession I know when people are not telling me the whole story, judging from your body language in our first conversation and the fact that you hesitated finishing your answer tells me that there's definitely something that's bothering you."

"There's really nothing bothering me Doctor and I don't see any sense in this second conversation, I certainly don't like all the skepticism from Agent Gibbs and you even if I'm a hundred percent fit to work physically as well as mentally." Tim answered growing already impatient now as he looked with a very grim expression at Doctor Cranston.

"Is it about Delilah? Has she been more severely injured an s you want to let on previously?" Cranston then asked even if she knew very well that she was probably moving on some very thin ice with this question.

"NO! You wouldn't understand any way Doctor Cranston." Mc Gee replied in a very agitated tone before he stormed out of the room. Meanwhile Tony and Bishop had arrived at the warehouse where the call to Hayat Parsa had originated from, with FBI Agents standing by as their back up they finally enter the building with drawn weapons. In the distance Bishop is the first to spot a shadowy figure and immediately points in the direction, where she has spotted it to notify her colleague of it at once.

Mc Gee is now in the men's room, keep washing his face with water as he tries his very best to shake off these scary pictures. In the bullpen Doctor Cranston tells Gibbs about the latest conversation: "Sadly my doubts in my initial report have been confirmed, he got highly agitated as I mentioned his girlfriend during the conversation and left but one thing is for sure: If we keep trying to push him, it doesn't solve his emotional problems a bit so the best is that he figures this out on his own."

_AN: Please read and review_


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Tony and Bishop finally return to NCIS Headquarter with the apprehended Malik Bashir in tow and because Gibbs couldn't focus on the whole Mc Gee situation right now he focused on the interrogation of Bashir. They had caught him destroying some documents in the warehouse; they all could only guess what was on the paper documents because those one that they were able to recover where already burned a lot. As Bashir is finally placed into the interrogation room, Tony finally returns to the office of course wondering where Mc Gee is as his desk is empty but he decides not to ask Gibbs that questions, who seems to be in very deep thought as he watches him from the distance for a couple of minutes.

_It pretty much looks like it that I have to send Mc Gee home, because it's clearly obvious that all that negative emotion starts to have a bad impact on his performance at work. I don't understand why he can't talk to anybody from the team about that one thing that bothers him so much, because from my viewpoint this team has been more than just colleagues over the years and the bad times making this special even stronger. _ As he has finally finished up some paperwork, he looks directly in Dinozzo's direction as he says:

"Tony get down to Abby's lab and try to recover as much as possible from the burnt pieces of paper."

"I will do that Boss." Tony shortly answers before he heads to elevator to get downstairs to the Lab of the Goth, of course hoping that she would be somehow able to do her little magic again. Meanwhile Delilah is alone again in her room; because its lunch time now both of her parents were very hungry and she had insisted that she was able to eat her lunch on her own.

Of course Delilah appreciated the concern from her parents a lot but sometimes they could very overprotective especially her mother. She was lost in her own thoughts that she didn't notice the phone on the nightstand ringing and of course who could call her at this hour of the day, of the very few that had got her number of her room in the hospital. Even if it took a lot of strength out of her, she was finally able to get a hold of the receiver and picked it up: "Hello?" It took a while before a somehow sad sounding Tim said on the end of the line:

"Hey it's me Tim, how are you feeling today?" As he anxiously waited for an answer from his girlfriend he deep down hoped that she didn't notice that kind of sadness in her voice, because even if they weren't together for that long she almost knew every time when he was hiding something from her.

She thought about this question for a few minutes, even if she knew that he would probably get concerned for her a bit but then she finally said: "Besides of hating the food and the fact of keep laying around the most time of the day in bed I feel as could as you can under these circumstances." Then she shortly laughed to cover up the fact, that she surely wasn't feeling that happy inside as she wanted it Tim to think. In the interrogation room Gibbs confronts Bashir about the evidence he has on him and deep down he knows that he has got his only suspect right there where he wants him. He watches for Bashir's reaction as he pulls out a single photograph and says: "This man almost got away for kidnapping Keely Jones that woman who has been continuously abused by her husband and I know that you pride yourself with doing the right thing in this case."

Malik finally relents seeing that Gibbs has cornered him and there's no way out of this little trap, so after taking one short breath he says: "Fine you got me, my mission was to smuggle Parsa onto a cargo train that heads from Baltimore to Miami and that's honestly all I know. "

Back in the men's room Tim is still on the phone with his girlfriend as he finally decides to open up to her: "I've been trying very hard to hide this from all the people around me since the explosion at the Gala has happened, but now I can't take it anymore, I' m being haunted of images of your dead body, how a doctor tells me that you didn't make it and I have to visit your funeral and I know for sure that I can't live without you Delilah."

He lets out one longer breath as he's happy to have finally have gotten all of this off his chest and now waits for her reaction on his confession. Delilah doesn't know what to say for quite a while, then one tear finally threatens to run down one of her cheeks as she so touched by this, finally now having the feeling that they are starting to establish the trust between them that she had missed a little bit. It takes quite a while but then she is finally able to recompose herself and say: "I've been also haunted in my dream by all those horrible pictures of the bombing, fearing that we would never see each other again."

There's a longer silence between them before Tim finally says: "I'll be in the hospital in a few, I truly have missed you the whole day and we will get through this entire emotional pain together okay?"

Delilah is very happy to hear, it's making her tears subside for now and she replies:

"Yes we will and I've really missed you the entire day a lot."

As always the day at the office had passed by really quick, now it was getting dark outside and Gibbs was busy with doing of the one thing that he hated so much about this job: Doing the last piece of paperwork for today.

A few minutes later Mc Gee had finally ended the call with Delilah, now he made his way back to the office realizing that his behavior today was inexcusable and he let the entire team down. He thinks about what to say to Gibbs, who is probably pretty mad at him for just disappearing all over sudden during a very stressful case like the search for Benham Parsa was but he just had to make it up to him somehow.

A few minutes later, after doing a lot of thinking in the break room and a longer phone conversation with Delilah he finally steps up to Gibbs desk as he says: "Boss can we talk?"

"It's good that you finally decided to talk, because we all have been really worried for you Tim." Gibbs answers as he looks up from his paperwork to directly look at Mc Gee and then waits what the young man wants to say. Tim takes one deep breath, of course trying to choose his words he wants to say to his boss very carefully: "I realize that I should have seen earlier, that I'm not mentally fit for work again and that fault is certainly inexcusable. I will definitely take the time needed to sort this all out and will now go see Delilah at the hospital and she's going to need all the support she can get during her long road of recovery."

"It's nice to see that you're happy with her but don't forget that your team is also willing to help you in any way they can." Gibbs says and before Tim turns around to leave the office, he says one last sentence to his boss: "I won't forget that Boss."

_AN: Thanks to- DS 2010 for reviewing this story, Thanks to- Toronto girl 12 for reviewing this story._

_Please read and review_


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Tim finally sat by his girlfriend's bedside, she feeling so much comfortable as he keeps holding her hand gently the entire time. She has totally forgotten about all the disappointment from yesterday, as Tim didn't want to go to the gala with her because she really couldn't think of any reason why he actually would decline it. He finally broke the silence between them as he said:

"So when can you finally start the rehab?" Of course he shared the feeling with her, of getting started with the rehab as soon as possible really hating it to see her being that immobile in the hospital.

Delilah smiled at him weakly as she replied: "Doctor Parker says that if nothing changes my good medical condition over the next days I will start the rehab by the end of this week." Tim smiled back her as he heard that very good news out of the mouth of his girlfriend, gently squeezed her left hand as he answered back: "That's very good news, I hope that I can watch you make some progress during the rehab sessions." At first Delilah was a little bit surprised by that statement from him, but because of the huge emotional stress he was under as a result of the very stressful Parsa Case it did make a lot of sense to her that he really needed to get some time off from work. Both of them pretty relieved to finally be able to open up to each other about all the worries they had since the drone attack had happened and that they both had survived it in one piece.

Delilah's parents had left the hospital in the afternoon, because they wanted to do some sightseeing in Washington and she was kind of happy to be able to spend some time alone with the man she loved so much. As she lay there in her bed, Delilah promised to herself to never ever doubt Tim's feelings for her because that emotional moment that they had shared on the phone showed how her much he cared about her.

"I'm sure that Doctor Parker will have no problem with that and thanks for all the support you give me Tim, because it really means a lot to me even I know that you want to help to put Parsa finally behind bars." Delilah said after letting this sink in for a moment and as she looked at the dark evening sky for a few minutes she had to ask herself: _Can I sleep better tonight after I got this emotional burden off my chest? _

She clearly hoped that it would ease her troubled mind just a bit, because the alternative would be very bad: Countless sleepless nights that would eventually drain a lot of energy from her body and would have a negative effect on her very important work as a cryptologist at the Department of Defense. Deep down she was pretty happy to not have a job in the field like Tim had at NCIS, after being right in the middle of a drone attack and barely having survived it.

She never had been a very religious person in the past, but after having survived the attack on the Congress Gala she may be realized one thing: There could be someone who's actually watching over her.

Mc Gee could imagine very well how bad his girlfriend's first night in the hospital was, from what she had told him in their short phone conversation and as he looked out of the window for a few minutes into the dark night sky of Washington, he couldn't help but yawn a little bit as sleep finally begin to caught up with him after he had practically worked for a couple of hours without allowing himself to make a break in between.

Tim's train of thought was suddenly interrupted as he heard Delilah say: "It looks to me like you need some sleep Tim, because you seem to be very exhausted." As tried to keep his eyes from closing for now, he had to admit that she was somehow right about that: He was really tired, all that stress of the day had finally caught up with him but on the other hand he just didn't want to leave her side right now because he hadn't been able to see her for almost the entire day.

He then finally replied after he had recomposed himself again: "I guess that you're right about, but truth is I don't sleep that well without you lying right next to I and I will certainly continue to miss waking up next to you until you're finally out of the hospital." She didn't know what to respond to that for a while, because it touched her so much that one single tear made his way down one of her cheeks and that was really some kind of feeling that was pretty new to her. With his one free hand, he reached over to her right cheek wiping that one tear away and gently kissed her on her forehead.

"I love you with all my heart and I'm sorry if I made you doubt in any way. I not wanting to go with you to the gala was really stupid, maybe I was just scared that this thing between us might end as all the other "relationships" with women I had in the past: Me getting the short end of the stick in the very end." Tim said and deep down hoped that maybe she would understand him a little bit better, Delilah gently squeezed his hand and thought: _What a cute love pledge that was. _

"I love you too Tim and I don't doubt that you do it too, somehow I also hope that you will continue to talk to me when there are any problems to be solved because I don't this relationship be jeopardized again by keeping any secrets from one another."

"Of course I promise I will come to talk to you, if there's any problem between us to be solved." Tim replied and then she said shortly after that:

"I certainly you promise you the same thing right now, because the thing what I have with you is very special to me. I love you so much for just being you and not trying so hard to pretend something that you're not."

_AN: Please read and review_


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

_One week later_

Delilah was finally in the middle of rehab, so far she still struggled a lot with keeping her balance but the Doctor and Tim trying their best to motivate her to keep going no matter what. You could clearly see the enormous amount of sweat cascading down her forehead as she slowly continued walking towards the end of the two poles, which she was tightly holding onto right now somewhere deep inside having that slight fear of falling. As she channeled all her energy in walking towards the goal, she kept thinking: _*Come on! You can do this.* _

Delilah shortly stopped wiping away some of the sweat on her forehead, shortly smiled at her boyfriend that was standing nearby and then she continued hold onto the both poles again to concentrate on her rehab training again.

From the distance she could see the end of the two poles, what motivated her lot more to keep going and also because of the fact that she finally wanted to be back home. Delilah was also really looking forward to the little romantic candle light dinner she and Tim would have once she was ready to be released out of the hospital. To busy her mind with some happy thoughts right now, she was thinking back to their first ever date a couple of years ago.

_Flashback_

_Looking up to the dark night sky, the freshly fallen in love couple lay on a blanket together as she had her head resting on Tim's abdomen Delilah somehow felt those butterflies like she had with her first ever boyfriend in High School: Jimmy Warner. She totally was on Cloud Nine right now, as the two of them just enjoyed each other's company with no words at all being exchanged between them and it surely wasn't an uncomfortable silence at this moment._

_As a falling star came right through her field of view, she smiled shortly and of course Tim couldn't resist asking: "What did you wish for?" Delilah turned her head a little bit to face him, now softly going through his hair with one hand and finally replied as she playfully hit him on his shoulder: "It wouldn't come through if I told silly." _

_Tim just got lost in her wonderful eyes for a short moment, and then he finally said: "I think that I have a little special method to make you tell me." Without the opportunity to prepare for it he started one of his famous tickle attacks on her, Delilah was trying her very best to get out of it by turning Tim over so that she wasn't exposed to his tickle attacks anymore. _

_It took quite a while but she was finally able to pin him down to the ground, as she now hovered above him and kept a very firm hold onto his two hands as they were some kind of deadly weapons. He smiled back at her weakly and said: "Okay I surrender, I guess you got me." _

_Triumphantly she smiled back at him, as she finally let go again of his hands and said with a big grin on her face: "This totally proves once again, that I'm able to outsmart you even with your tickle attacks." _

_But Tim of course had just suckered her in, as he turned things around and now got Delilah pinned to the ground and she definitely had a stunned look on her face he chuckled: "You still think that you can outsmart a MIT graduate?" Without saying another word, she just gently grabbed him and pressed her lips onto his and of course Mc Gee was totally surprised by that bold move from her but he gladly allowed her tongue entrance into his mouth. _

_End Flashback_

She finally snapped back into the reality as Tim asked her: "What are you smiling about?" Of course she was a little bit embarrassed about the fact of being caught spacing out by Tim and in front of her doctor but after she had finally recomposed herself she answered: "I just thought about our first ever date in that wonderful park near my apartment." She didn't want to get into details in front of the Doctor because she figured that this alone would definitely be enough to be said for Tim to understand what she had been thinking about specifically. Mc Gee of course had figured that out very quickly, smiled back at her and replied: "Yeah that was a great evening indeed and we definitely have to repeat that very soon."

Delilah finally finished up her rehab session, Tim then brought her back into her room and he was pretty happy with his decision to have taken some time off work. Gibbs had also signed off on this, clearly stating that he should definitely take all the time that he needed to recover emotionally from being right in the middle of a terror attack.

As she was rolled back to her room by her boyfriend Delilah said: "I'm really looking forward to getting rid of this puppy very soon because it's so uncomfortable to not be able to walk on my own." Of course Tim could totally understand that his girlfriend wanted to get out of the wheelchair as soon possible, because he would definitely feel the same way and he finally said: "You're already making a lot of progress in the first rehab session so you will definitely be able to walk on your own very soon."

She was very glad of the fact, that he was always had been able to cheer her up when she was down and motivated her a lot to keep working hard to get back to a hundred percent again very soon.

Doctor Jean Parker had finally caught up with them and as she walked right next to Tim and Delilah she said: "You've already made so much progress in the first rehab session today Miss Fielding and I'm happy to say that your medical condition has improved a lot since the day you have been admitted to the hospital."

_AN: Thanks to- DS 2010 for reviewing this story. Please read and review_


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Shortly after lunch time in the hospital Delilah's parents had returned. Tim's girlfriend immediately smiled as the two had entered the room her mother of course asking shortly after she had sit down on one of the chairs next to her daughter's bedside: "How are you feeling today Sweetie?" Tim couldn't help but smile too as his girlfriend, because her smile not also still made butterflies fly around in his stomach it also was totally contagious. As always Delilah had been very dissatisfied with the lunch, she always was really critically in the matters of food in general even if some people had said that she pretty much had the tendency to exaggerate it.

"I'm still not a hundred percent, still can't use my legs in full capacity again but Doctor Parker said that I'm already making great progress in the rehab so far. " Stephanie Fielding could surely see the frustration in the eyes of her daughter even if she tried her very best to hide that from own mother the best way possible, but it was her duty as her mother to know when her child was upset because of something that really bothered her. Delilah's mother gently squeezed her daughter's hand shortly, trying to reassure her with just this small gesture of affection that she would be there for her to support this whole difficult time. Stephanie surely had been so scared, from the moment that her boyfriend Tim Mc Gee had told them that her daughter had been badly injured during the attack on the black- tie gala to the honor of the big professional success in her position as a cryptologist in the Department of Defense and it somehow still made her said how bad that evening had ended for her and the man she loved so much.

Never ever did she imagine that her child could possibly get into that kind of situation, because the job as a cryptologist in the DOD usually was a desk work only job and then she was badly injured outside of the office as she got in the middle of a terror attack?

That was surely that she had a very hard time digesting at that moment and it took a lot of strength out of her to not let the phone receiver fall just out of pure shock. She quickly banned those negative thoughts out of her mind, trying her best to think positive right now as she was being happy that her daughter was starting to feel better day by day. Of course Mc Gee had felt that urge in the beginning to go back to work at first, because she wanted to help putting that bastard Parsa finally to justice but he quickly had to realize, that he wouldn't of any use for the team in his emotionally distraught state that he had been in after almost losing his girlfriend because of the drone attack on the black-tie gala.

It had definitely taken a lot of time to realize it but the only thing that mattered to him now the most, was the fact that Delilah would soon be able again to walk on her own and he would probably also feel uncomfortable in her position but he was pretty much determined to support her the whole way.

Delilah's dad finally broke the silence before it could get just a little uncomfortable: "I bet that the food here is horrible and that you can't wait to cook yourself in your apartment." Delilah smiled at that shortly; her dad just knew all of her little quirks all too well and she finally replied:

"Yeah but since the alternative is to starve for the rest of my time at the hospital isn't sounding that good, I guess that I have to put up with this crappy food for the time being."

With a little grin on his face Mc Gee said: "Maybe Tony can smuggle in some food for you, from that great Italian Restaurant that you love so much."

"What a great Idea, I should definitely make that suggestion to him when he finally comes to the hospital to visit." Delilah said grinning back at her boyfriend and for the moment all that little frustration about the fact, that the rehab didn't go as fast as she might wanted it were forgotten for now.

The rest of the day went by pretty fast, Mc Gee as always being the one to stay the longest because he knew how much she needed him to be by her side to talk to her after this horrible thing that they had been through at the Gala.

"I know that I shouldn't worry about this so much anymore, but I still can't but ask myself the question over and over if we maybe could have prevented all these innocent people dying if we had known earlier what Parsa had planned." Delilah said after a longer moment of silence between them and Mc Gee of course understood pretty good how she felt because he had felt the same way for a long time after the drone attack, before it finally had dawned on him that the team had tried so hard to find out Parsa's plans sooner but unfortunately they didn't and they certainly couldn't make the bad things undone no matter how much they wanted to do just that.

He gave her a hand gentle squezze and said: "We tried very hard to find out about the attack on the gala but unfortunately we didn't so just don't beat yourself up for this anymore."

Meanwhile Jethro Gibbs was working on making some birds houses in his basement, because he also felt the need to distance himself just a little bit from the drone attack and that one member of his team had found himself in the crosshairs of the terrorist Benham Parsa. This was surely no ordinary case, the whole Parsa thing had been personal from the start and seeing Mc Gee being that emotionally distraught after having almost lost the woman he loved involuntarily stirred up the one of his traumatic memories up again: That day were he had been notified in Irak that his beloved daughter and wife had been murdered by one of the henchmen of the Drug Dealer Pedro Hernandez, before they had been able to testify against him in court.

It would definitely devastated him emotionally if Delilah hadn't survived the drone attack on the gala, of course it hadn't been an very easy decision to make as he knew where Parsa was and knowing at the same time that one of the members of his team had been right in the middle of the shockwave from the C4 explosion but he just wasn't able to throw away their only lead in this case no matter how important Mc Gee was to him.

Tony Dinozzo was also doing some very hard thinking in his apartment, after all what had happened on the day of the drone attack. He hated to see Mc Gee suffer like that emotionally, as he had nearly lost his girlfriend because of Benham Parsa and he figured that he would probably pay Delilah a visit tomorrow. It had been a pretty hard day for all of them, a lot people had died during the drone attack and he couldn't help but feel that he somehow failed at doing his job big time.

Tim and Delilah kept on talking for quite a while, until she finally started to yawn, when Tim then got up from his chair and wanted to leave as they had said their goodbyes he was stopped by her voice calling out for him once more: "Hey….don't I get a little goodnight kiss? She then looked at him with her best puppy dog eyes look and of course he immediately made his way back to her bed and she was totally on Cloud Nine as he softly pressed his lips against his hers and as she didn't want this moment to end too early she had his lips practically captured for a couple of minutes.

_AN: Please read and review_


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

The next morning when Delilah just had been finished with her breakfast, she was surprised in good way as she saw Abby Sciuto coming through the door after she had announced to the visitor that he or she could come in. "Hey Abbs it's very nice that come by to visit me, because I really missed you a lot since I have been stuck here." The Goth smiled at the DOD cryptologist, being so glad that she hadn't lost her humor after all this drama she had been through and finally said:

"You look very good, how is the rehab going?" Abby asked as she finally sat down on a chair and got it right next to Delilah's bedside as she waited for the response from Mc Gee's girlfriend.

"I'm very happy to hear that Abbs and the rehab is going good so far, even if I still struggle with some pain in my right shoulder but Doctor Parker said that this would go away eventually, even if it may take a little bit longer than being able to walk on my own again." She didn't know why but Abby somehow got the feeling that Tim's girlfriend needed a hug now, so she got up from her chair and of course Delilah was pretty surprised as the Goth suddenly hugged her tightly. There were some minutes of silence between them, as Abby had finally sat back down on the chair next to the bedside of the DOD cryptologist and Delilah figured that she still had to get used to the fact that the Goth was so hyper but she was a very sympathetic person overall.

She had to admit that the first ever meeting with the Goth had been very awkward but in the end they had become very good friends and to break to silence between them she finally said: "

"Thanks for the hug Abbs; I really needed that right now because I honestly am a little bit frustrated the healing process doesn't go a bit faster." Delilah knew very well that patience really wasn't one of her virtues from experience over the years and she guessed that this whole thing had been passed onto her from her father.

Overall she was glad to know that Tim had put up with all her little idiosyncrasies, because not all of her boyfriends had accepted that in the past. Abby smiled at her finally and replied:

"You're welcome and continue to work hard in the rehab and you soon will be back to a hundred percent and don't forget that there are lots of people by your side to support you." The Goth hopped that this little pep talk would do the trick and make her see that whole situation from a little more optimistic point of view.

"When do you have your next rehab session?" Abby then asked and shortly looked out of the window of the room, enjoying the wonderful view you had into a sweet looking little park just outside of the hospital as she waited for the answer from Tim's girlfriend.

"My next session is at eleven o'clock and Doctor Parker says that I've already made great progress during the first session yesterday."

The two women kept on talking for a while, Abby suggesting that she, Delilah and Tim should do something together when Delilah was finally out of the hospital and of course the DOD cryptologist totally loved that suggestion. When somebody knocked on the door a little bit later, Delilah said: "Come in." A big smiled immediately appeared on her face as she saw her boyfriend walking into the room: "Hey you good morning, how did you sleep last night?" Tim asked as he had carefully closed the door behind him and while he waited for Delilah's answer he shortly greeted Abby, figuring that the Goth wanted to surprise Delilah with her unannounced visit in the hospital.

After Delilah had sipped on her cup of the tea, which stood on the little nightstand next to her bed she replied: "Pretty good I would say but it will be a lot better when I can finally cuddle with you at night."

As Abby watched this little exchange between the two lovebirds play out in front of her, she couldn't help but think: _Awww….Those two are really just meant to be together and it's so adorable just to watch those two interact with each other. _

Tim finally sat down on one chair on the other side of the bed and thought: _Yeah I miss the cuddling at night with you too. _

"Abby suggested that the three of us do something together after I'm out of the hospital, like going to cinema or eat something at my favorite Italian Restaurant." Delilah said before the silence between them would get too uncomfortable and deep down she already knew that Mc Gee would like the idea.

"That sounds really good to me." Mc Gee replied without any hesitation and of course he was also really looking forward to the day, when Delilah would finally be released out the hospital because it just wasn't the same when he slept alone in this very big bed in the bedroom of his apartment.

"What do you think about a little dinner at the Da Vinci?" Delilah then asked, of course not wanting them to force to do anything but because of their time consuming jobs she and Tim hadn't been able to actually go out for a nice dinner.

The two of them agreed on her suggestion and then Delilah said with a big smile on her face: "I'm really looking forward to our little dinner date and I'm still counting the days till I don't have to eat that awful hospital food anymore." Mc Gee just grinned at the last part of her sentence, knowing how critical she could be when it came to food and said with a grin on his face: "I talked to Tony yesterday and he would definitely volunteer to smuggle in some pizza for you. "

Delilah laughed at that suggestion and replied: "I will tell him that I will maybe take him up on the offer very soon." Abby now also joined into the laughter and the three of them kept on laughing for some minutes.

_AN: Thanks to- TL Walcher for adding this story to her/his story alert subscription. Please read and review_


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Later that day Abby left the hospital, because she wanted to go to a concert with some friends of her in the evening: „Thanks for the visit Abby; I really had a good time with you and of course you can come by more often in the next days that I have to spend in this horrible hospital bed." The Goth smiled at her brightly, glad to know that Tim's girlfriend did appreciate her visit that much and also that the two had become such close friends that quick.

"Of course I will come to visit a lot more the next days and I'm surely rooting for you that you can return to work soon." Abby then hugged her tightly and this little scene made Tim also smile a bit, also being glad of the fact that Delilah was now even more motivated than before to finally leave this hospital after she was so much exhausted after the first rehab session.

Tim then also stood up to hug Abby shortly and then said: "Thanks for the visit Abby and have a good time at the concert tonight." The Goth patted her colleague and good friend softly on the right shoulder before she replied: "That's no problem for me Mc Gee and seems to me like Delilah really is a fighter."

"Yes she really is." Mc Gee replied before Abby finally left the room with one final wave to them and then they were alone in the room again. Delilah then realized that she was kind of getting thirsty, so she changed her position in bed just a little so that she could reach the cup of tea without any problems and took one large sip out of it. She then shortly looked at the clock that stood on the night stand right next to her bedside and finally said: "I have my next rehab session in one hour, will you accompany me again?"

"Of course I will Delilah and I'm so glad to see that you've already made such great progress during the first rehab session with Doctor Parker." Then he shortly kissed her forehead, admiring her for trying her very best not to get totally inpatient even if patience surely wasn't one of her virtues and also continued to work hard in rehab even if she had been quite exhausted after the actual session with Doctor Parker. "I'm very thankful for all your support the entire time because I surely wouldn't know what I would have done without it." Of course all that had happened was really bad but in the end there had been also one tiny good thing to it: The Drone Attack clearly had made their relationship a lot stronger than before, all of her doubts about it had been fully blown away and deep down she surely hoped that she would never ever be forced to doubt Tim's love again.

After some silence between them Delilah finally asked with a little grin on her face: "Do you think that Tony will volunteer to smuggle in the pizza for me? " Tim grinned back at her brightly figuring that she really had to hate the awful hospital food and replied jokingly: "You are really a little fast food junkie aren't you?" Delilah adjusted her position in the bed just enough to be able to softly nudge him into his side and pretended to be offended by that statement as she replied: "Hey watch your mouth Mister!" The two started laughing heavily as Mc Gee pretended that the little playful punch into his side had actually hurt him and Delilah thought: _I really can't remember the last time that I felt this good with one of my former boyfriends, sure they all were great but it seemed to me that there was always missing that one thing to make it the perfect chemistry between me and him._

All the thoughts about the long rehab that she had to go through were forgotten for now and she was really happy to be able to distract herself that easy for now. Of course it wouldn't be easy to accept at first to have to use crutches in her first days out of the hospital, but because of the huge trauma that her body had been through because of the drone attack she somehow had to learn to walk again.

She surely never had been that kind of person that gave up that easily but the huge moral support that she had from the people around her had of course motivated her so much to keep pushing her herself towards her limits and maybe a bit over that unseen red line. Overall she really couldn't stand the fact to just lay around in bed the most time of the day and do nothing, because she always had been that kind of person that needed to be busy with at least one thing or she would definitely be bored to death very quickly.

An hour later Tim accompanied his girlfriend to the next rehab session, which she had certainly anxiously waited for in the last couple of hours and seemed quite ready to get some more work done in the effort of getting back to a hundred percent. Her boss at the DOD Mark Roberts had said that she should take all the time she needed to fully recover and she certainly didn't need to worry about her job for one second because she was and still is one of his best cryptologists no matter what happens.

Doctor Parker was really glad to see which great progress her patient kept making, as she was able to walk while keeping hold off the two poles without much pause in between, Mc Gee also hugged her tightly and whispered softly into her ear: "Great Job so far, keep going." Later Delilah's parents also joined to watch the rehab session of their daughter, Delilah didn't let herself be distracted by that in any way as she also did some gymnastics exercises to get her legs back into good shape because her walk surely still was too unstable to walk on her own and so she kept holding onto her boyfriend as she crossed the short distance between the two poles and the gymnastic ball.

_AN: Thanks to- Toronto girl 12 for reviewing this story, Thanks to- soapcat 3272 for adding this story to her/his story alert subscription and adding me to her/his Author Alert subscription. Please read and review_


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

By the middle of the week Tony and Ellie, who had become good friends very quick also stopped by the hospital for a longer visit. Of course the first thing that Tony said was as he came through the door: "Sorry about the pizza Delilah, as I tried to smuggle it into the hospital a pretty grim looking security guard that I was surely scared confiscated it." The DOD Cryptologist couldn't help but grin widely because of that comment and like her smile was just a little intoxicating Dinozzo grinned back at her and added: "It's a shame it wasn't a woman because then I could have my famous Dinozzo Charm on her."

A little bit confused of that statement, Bishop and Delilah just stared at him blankly for a moment before he said: "It definitely works on all women, because I know that from good experience in the past." As the two present women in the room evilly stared at him for a moment, he quickly raised his hands in defense like he was ready to slapped and quickly said: "The two present women in the room now are of course excluded from that." Ellie couldn't help but High Five Delilah as she saw, how much scared Tony suddenly got as the two had practically tried to stare holes into him and as the two men looked at them totally confused Delilah said: "Sorry guys but that's a women only thing." Ellie then decided to change the subject as she said: "You look pretty good, how the rehab is going so far?"

Delilah smiled shortly at that comment from Ellie and replied: "Thank you and I also feel very good, thankfully Doctor Parker says that it won't be long until I can finally leave the hospital and I surely missed my apartment a lot since I've been admitted to the hospital." Ellie and Delilah had easily connected over the short period of time they had known each other, Delilah being totally impressed by the fact that Ellie knew so much about her work and Ellie surely had been honored to finally meet one of the best from the DOD Cryptologist department.

"That sounds really good and I think that we should really have some dinner together after you're finally out of the hospital, you know some kind of double date you bring Tim and I will finally introduce you to my lovely husband." Delilah was really intrigued by that, because of the fact that Ellie had so told her so much about her husband that she really had been anxiously waiting to finally meet him in person.

"Of course we will absolutely do this do together; I really love the idea of having a double date." She said and Mc Gee also loved the idea and added: "That sounds like a very good idea to me too; we can set up a date together very soon." Ellie was glad that both of them had agreed and she was sure that her husband would also love the idea to be able to meet one of her new colleagues from NCIS. Being accepted into the team that quickly certainly had made the transition from NSA to NCIS a lot easier for her even if it still would definitely get some getting used to working with Special Leroy Jethro Gibbs, that one person that was impossible to read at any time and it frustrated her very much.

But on the other hand she could definitely learn a lot from Agent Gibbs and maybe she would also get a permanent Job at NCIS very soon, because it definitely seemed to her like Special Agent Gibbs was pretty happy with her work so far. Of course she was also very aware of one thing: She wouldn't be able to fill the big shoes of her two predecessors at this desk, two women that had surely been very special persons to the Team Gibbs on their own especially former Secret Service Agent Kate Todd. The way Abby had talked about her, it really looked it to Ellie that she had been the sister that the Goth never had and that sweet message had definitely touched her so much. Tony finally broke the silence between them as he finally said: "That stare that you two just gave me a few minutes ago really gets the creeps out of me ladies, so please don't ever do that again makes me feel like I'm stared down by Gibbs."

Then he suddenly grinned widely, because a Dinozzo was never ever scared of anybody and that made Mc Gee, Bishop and Delilah grin widely too. Then in a more serious tone Tony said: "It's good to see you healing that good after what you've been through because of the drone attack and I'm sure that Tim will be very happy to nurse you back to full health at home." Delilah had known it from the beginning beyond all that jokes was a really sweet person that always knew what to say at the right time and she couldn't help but feel a little bit sorry for him because of the fact, that he didn't have any serious relationships in the past.

"I'm really sure too that Tim will do very well as a male nurse when I'm back at home and I'm also very glad to finally get back to work very soon." Delilah said and yes maybe she deep down was a big workaholic but she just never had been able to be that kind of person that could let work slide for that long. The rehab sessions surely had been very hard at first but it all had been worth it in the end and she surely had missed her job a lot since she had been admitted to the hospital. Of course she would also enjoy spending some more quality time alone with Tim and their relationship was certainly starting to grow a lot after she actually did have some doubt if they were right for each other in the end. She had realized very soon that all those doubts had been unreasoned, because the drone attack did actually have something good after all: The two had become a lot closer and she never ever had been happier to be his girlfriend.

_AN: Thanks to- soapcat 3372 for reviewing this story, Thanks to-Toronto girl 12 for reviewing this story, Thanks to- DS 2010 for reviewing this story. Please read review_


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Finally one last week remained before Delilah was finally allowed to go home and that most of the hospital a little bit more bearable. Of course her boyfriend also accompanied her to all the rehab sessions in the week, Delilah was very glad for all that moral support for him at this very difficult time for her and she surely didn't know if she be able to go through this emotional rollercoaster without him and her parents. Having just finished another exhausting rehab session Delilah told her parents, who just had arrived in the hospital room: "Great News Mom and Dad, just one more week and I'll be finally allowed to return home isn't that great?"

Both of her parents of course smiled at her daughter and her mother was the first to respond to that great news: "That's so good to hear darling, me and Dad are surely happy to hear that. Did Doctor Parker say anything about how much longer do you need to use the crutches to walk? "

"Doctor Parker said that I have to use them for at least three more weeks after my release from the hospital because the leg injuries still aren't healed fully, so that I am not allowed to put full pressure on my legs just yet." Delilah said, Tim holding her hand the entire time and she really enjoyed this sweet show of affection from as she shortly smiled at him. As Delilah's dad watched this whole scene play in front of him, he couldn't help but think back to the days of him and his wife when they had freshly fallen in love with each other as they were teenagers and that Tim and his daughter had been perfect for each other from the very beginning.

Her dad then finally asked: "How did the rehab session this morning go darling? "

"It surely was exhausting as always but Doctor Parker was very proud of the progress I've made in this short amount of time." Delilah answered and sipped on her cup of tea shortly, just like every morning the nurse had brought her one extra tea bag in the morning and thankfully the tea that they served was much better than most of the food in the hospital. Tim was surely happy too, that this whole drone attack did have at least one good thing in the end: It really had strengthen the relationship between him and Delilah and right at the moment, it had been clear that she had survived the attack on the Gala Mc Gee had sworn to himself to never ever disappoint her again. Shortly after that unpleasant little "fight" with her on the day of the gala, Mc Gee couldn't help but think about that very disappointed look on her face and that surely made him feel very miserable at that point.

"Overall I have to say that I'm really thankful for the moral support you've given to our daughter Tim, it means a lot to me and my wife that Delilah has finally found the man that doesn't play around with her feelings and is cheating on her behind her back." Delilah's dad said with a smile directed at her daughter's girlfriend and Tim was kind of flustered about this whole compliment, because all of his relationship hadn't worked out that well like this one with Delilah but then he finally said:

"Thank you, I really have to say that I'm so lucky to won have over her heart in the first place this quick."

Delilah couldn't help but giggle at that comment a little, Tim gently squeezed her hand in return and bringing back the memories of the start of their relationship was surely nice. Remembering like it was yesterday she started to think back to their first ever date.

_Flashback_

_Mc Gee had chosen an open air cinema as the location of a first date with the woman that he just had freshly fallen in love with: the wonderful Delilah Fielding, a cryptologist that worked for the Department of Defense which made things a lot easier between them. Delilah had a very nice red dress on, that got Tim very stunned as he had seen it for the first back at her apartment and now the two of them were sitting on a blanket Tim gently holding Delilah's right hand._

_Delilah surely felt right from the start that there surely had been some kind of special connection between them and she never ever had fallen in love with anyone this quick._

_Tonight they would watch "The Other Woman" together, thinking that a romantic movie like this was surely appropriate for a first date in the cinema with a woman. "This is really nice; I have to say that this is the first time ever that I'm watching a film at an open air cinema." Delilah smiled at Tim shortly, squeezed his hand gently for a short amount of time and Tim couldn't help but get lost in those wonderful eyes of hers for a couple of minutes. _

_To finally get him out of his little trance, Delilah couldn't help but grin at this site in front of her and said: "It's really very cute to see you drool Timmy, I could watch this expression for a couple of hours." As he finally snapped out of his trance, Mc Gee was a little bit embarrassed for a second and mumbled shortly: "Sorry….for spacing out." Then he added after a longer pause:_

"_I'm really glad that you like It here that much, I went to the Open Air Cinema almost every summer because there was nearly every year at least one film that I wanted to watch. Maybe I sound a little bit like a broken record but I can't say enough, how beautiful you look tonight." _

_End Flashback_

_One Week later_

Delilah was finally released out of the hospital right after her last breakfast in the morning that actually had been the only meal that had tasted good in the whole time at the hospital since she had been admitted to it. After saying her final goodbyes to her Doctor and some nice nurses, Mc Gee finally escorted his girlfriend out of the building and she couldn't help but grin widely at him as it was time to back home. As they had reached Mc Gee's car, a little black Honda Tim put the bags with his girlfriend's clothes in the trunk and then held the door of the front seat passenger open for her just like every true gentleman would do it for the woman that he loved.

Because of the fact not being hundred percent fit yet, it took a little bit longer for her to finally get the seat belt to make that usual click noise but she guessed that was something that she had to get used to for the next weeks.

As they were finally on the way to Mc Gee's apartment Delilah said: "I'm really looking forward to our little double date with Ellie and her husband, we definitely have to set up a date very soon at a restaurant."

"Finally getting to meet Ellie's husband is something I'm looking forward to also but one way or another you're definitely going to outlast all the other women in the restaurant with your beauty." Tim said and Delilah couldn't help but blush a little bit because of that such sweet compliment that she just had heard from her boyfriend.

_AN: Only one more chapter to go, then this story is finished and you can all look forward to a very romantic dinner in the final chapter of this story. Thanks to- Toronto girl 12 for reviewing this story. Please read and review_


End file.
